How about legal exposure, or loss of political goodwill (especially by those who are in positions to provide oversight)? Profitability is impacted by more factors than just raw "number of eyeballs"

Well, the funny thing is they're mostly protected from legal exposure by Section 230, that thing Trump keeps trying to get rid of.

In 2017 I saw Twitter advertising in Tokyo’s metro with Trump tweets. Even if their PR said “we don’t like it but it’s in the public interest,” it was obviously in their interest. Twitter has been mentioned daily in the news for the past 5 years, they turned a huge profit thanks the guy.

The only reason they’re acting now is that their excuse is about to expire. If they found another good excuse, Trump would stay.

Back then, it was in everyones interesst. Trump caused controversy, that drove traffic. Same applied for mainstream media and TV, everyone covered im because he drove engangement. The world would be much different, if everybody would just not have covered him and his rallies already in 2016. Everybody did, so.

Covering doesn’t mean letting him speak directly to the public. CNN also let him speak live after the election, but when he started speaking nonsense they interrupted the feed.

What’s happening this week isn’t new, it’s been happening for years.