The opinions expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of RedState.com.

What an incredible age we live in, where a contract negotiation over a starting salary of 50 million dollars between the Daily Wire and Steven Crowder can be played out in public. Now, mind you, I’m not jealous about this, I just didn’t have this on my Bingo card for January and didn’t purchase enough popcorn for the month.

Possibly you have missed that Steven Crowder of “Louder With Crowder” fame and Jeremy Boreing of the Daily Wire have had a somewhat friendly airing of a negotiation of Crowder joining Daily Wire after “Louder With Crowder” left The Blaze in December. I first became aware of this on Tuesday, when I watched this video from Crowder, which he tweeted out to his followers.

To watch the full episode calling out Big Con, click the link here: https://t.co/dUffmr0alT.

— Steven Crowder (@scrowder) January 17, 2023

While I was pondering the critique Steven had laid out, a surprise response from Jeremy Boreing landed on the interwebs and filled in some blanks of what Crowder was referring to in the offer he had received and rejected.

Lots of questions. Here's my answer. https://t.co/f7oDKx7A71 via @YouTube

— Jeremy Boreing (@JeremyDBoreing) January 19, 2023

I don’t know Mr. Boreing at all, but I do know some of the people at the Daily Wire and they all seem to like working there and Boreing personally. I do know Steven Crowder a bit from back in the day when he was a Michiganian and not a Michigander (Fact Check: Hey Michigan, You Are NOT a Michigander.) and always got along with him. I mention this because I could pontificate blindly about my feelings about the airing of some contract negotiations, but in the end, my feelings don’t really matter, and I’m not sufficiently sure of all that went on to make an educated guess here on the pages of RedState.

Yet, I am in the media biz and, as sure as hell is hot, I’m incredibly fascinated that this is being done in public and learning a thing or two — as I’m sure others who are watching this are as well.

Crowder mentioned that the landscape of social media has changed during the time he has done his show and undoubtedly will continue to change. This should give everyone some thoughts on how big tech companies like Google, Facebook, Twitter (until recently), and, of course, YouTube, have effectively silenced conservative voices. That has, in turn, affected money paid to content creators and that swings around and affects the bottom line of everything.

One of the overlooked points in this discussion by Crowder and Boreing is that media companies like the ones mentioned above and Salem Media, which owns RedState, have had to move to a model of putting some content behind a paywall because of big tech censorship.

When the RedState VIP program was about to be rolled out, the writers here at RedState were invited onto a call to explain why this was happening and the underlying reason was simple: Our posts could get hit with reduced visibility or even banned on Facebook, YouTube, or Twitter for simply writing a story that asked the question if it was “normal” for the FDA to speed up the approval of any vaccine. The magical violation of the “Terms of Service” or “Independent Fact Checkers” tag would be slapped on almost anything not agreeable to the benevolent overlords on the public side and take revenue needed to keep the lights on.

You could protest the decision but the writing was on the wall and tactics needed to be changed. Behind a paywall, those anti-free speech rules do not apply and that is why these programs are needed.

Just in the past couple of days here at RedState here are some of the stories that we would most likely get penalized for just in the title that was published behind that wall the Zuck can’t climb over.

Put Down That Cup of Coffee, You’re Causing Climate Change from Bob Hoge.

Your AR-15 Could Definitely Beat Joe Biden’s F-15 from Brandon Morse.

Penn Biden Center’s Friendliness With Communist China Leaves Unanswered Questions About Biden’s Storing Classified Documents There from Streiff.

Last but not least the RedState VIP Gold Show is hosted by yours truly and Scott Hounsell every Wednesday night at 8 pm EST.

While some might find this airing of “dirty laundry” distasteful, I find it an opportunity to discuss why paywalls are now a necessity to still speak freely in the muck of social media. The era of paywalls is here to stay until Elon Musk buys all the other outlets — and that might take a while.

So let me, in closing, echo Jeremy Boreing of the Daily Wire who sounded a bit like Andrew Breitbart in promoting more voices, not fewer, when he advocated joining Crowder over at Mug Club after Steven’s video protest. I encourage any of you reading this to support your favorite platform(s) by signing up for the paywall option to read content that does not have the cold creepy lips of government minders whispering into the ears of their social media puppets.

I would also be totally remiss if I did not add that right now if you go to RedState VIP and type in the code SAVEAMERICA, you will receive 40 percent off the price to get tons of content that Big Tech, Inc. does not want you to see, and to enjoy an ad-free experience.

Give it a try and I’m guessing you will not be disappointed.

Also, let me know what you think by checking out my BIO by clicking HERE. I’m always interested in what YOU the people have to say.