Josh Benton

And that means that a relatively small decision, like we're not going to endorse someone for president,

can have a really outsized impact because it creates for a quarter million people a reason to suddenly say, you know what, it's not worth the 10 bucks a month, the 15 bucks a month that I'm paying if they're going to be doing something that I find so much in opposition to my point of view.

Yeah, you saw at the time when people were canceling their subscriptions, you would see on social media reporters from The Post saying, please don't cancel The Post.

We understand that you may not like the decision that was made by our owner, but it's your money that allows us to keep operating, to allow us to still have jobs.

So there is a real tension there.

But at the same time, for me, it's very difficult to describe what happened at The Post as primarily a market-driven phenomenon.

The amount of money that The Post is losing is enormous to you or to me.

To Jeff Bezos, it is nothing.

His net worth in the past year has gone up enough to continue to pay for all the money that the Washington Post is losing for the rest of his life and the rest of his children's lives and the rest of his grandchildren's lives.

His wealth is at such a scale that there is no reason that a set of cuts like the one that we've seen this week is an economic necessity.

It's a choice.

There are enormous negative financial things happening in the digital news business more broadly.

But I think that is distinct from what is happening to the Washington Post because that is one man's choice fundamentally.

You know, that's a very reasonable question.

I'd say the reason I would expect different is because he acted differently.

The Washington Post was never a source of profit for him in any significant way.

When Bezos first bought the Post in 2013, one way I thought about it was there aren't many things that a man that wealthy and that powerful can do to change something in the first few paragraphs of his obituary.

When Jeff Bezos dies, he will be described as the founder of Amazon.com, who created one of the great fortunes of all time.

You know, if he takes mankind to another planet, perhaps that would show up there as well.

If he had saved one of the most important journalistic institutions in America, that would be another thing that would show up in those first few paragraphs, perhaps.