The New New Reading Environment

FOR A DECADE AND A HALF, Twitter held true utility for the contemporary reader. At its best, the site offered brisk access to the news and the figures responsible for it, to the wide-ranging commentary and often terrible opinions of interesting people, and to surprising encounters with previously unencountered knowledge. Until the past year’s insipid Musk-related shenanigans, the platform functioned as an efficient information delivery system that made it unique among its social media rivals — and unique, for that matter, among the media organs that depended on it for readers and ideas.