Hamish McKenzie

Thomas Edison demonstrated the first practical light bulb in 1879.

But it wasn't until the 1920s when electricity started to become common in people's homes.

The missing piece was the electric grid.

And if we look today at our current media revolution, we can see that the missing piece has been a different kind of power, economic power.

Economic autonomy gives creators freedom.

Instead of answering to bosses or an advertiser or an algorithm, they can focus on deeply serving their communities.

Instead of chasing virality, they can spend all their energy on doing their best work.

And in this way, the garden can bring a sense of order to social media's bedlam, distributing the power among the many

instead of the few.

Let's take a look at some examples of how the garden is already starting to flourish.

Take Crystal Ball and Saga and Jetty.

They're the hosts of a non-partisan news show called Breaking Points.

It used to be produced by The Hill and it had the name Rising, but then Crystal, who's from the left, Saga, who's from the right, decided to go independent.

They moved it to Supercast and YouTube and then to Rumble.

Now they make more money from subscriptions and cover a broader range of political viewpoints for an audience of more than a million viewers.

Take Caroline Chambers.

When publishers spurned her proposal for a cookbook deal,

She took matters into her own hands.

She set up a substack, because she's a genius.

She called it What to Cook When You Don't Feel Like Cooking.