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> rich enough to buy the newspaper

That's not how it worked. The moment Gutenberg invented the printing press, printers popped up everywhere and printed anything and everything. That means newspapers, newsletters, pamphlets, flyers, advertisements, bills, leaflets, everything.

It was cheap to print, not remotely restricted to the rich, and you certainly did not need to buy a newspaper. Schools print newspapers, businesses do, too.

A lot of it was political, too. For a famous example, see "Common Sense".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Sense



newspapers have reach, which is in the context we're talking about when making comparisons to twitter.

sure, you could cheaply print stuff, but you had to (pay people to) stand on a lot of street corners to get your message out there.


Thomas Paine made money off of Common Sense.


Really this is central to how the USA started, as there were several among the founding fathers who printed newsletters.




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