"Siri, what does it mean to get disintermediated?"

In its nascent years, celebrities were still unclear about how to use Instagram. Some tried to get the company to give them a payout (either via equity in the company or by direct payment) in exchange for posts. Others thought it destroyed their existing business model of selling access to the highest bidder.

Slowly, people realized that by going around the media gatekeepers, social media let the famous build direct relationships with their followers rather than having to go through a magazine or brand. This basically flipped the power dynamic between media and the subjects they cover.

But Jenner and Kardashian, who were still early in building their fame when Twitter launched, couldn’t make as much money off leaked photos. They realized that they could create an even bigger business in social media, by building their own version of a Hilton-inspired lifestyle brand, then selling ads based on the audience, as Moore was doing manually. Instead of leaking photos to the media, or paying paparazzi, or making reels for brands, they could release images of themselves on Instagram to an audience potentially much larger than the circulation of any pop culture magazine. Down the line, as they attached products to their fame, they could get feedback on what people wanted to buy before they even developed what they wanted to sell them. – "No Filter, The Inside Story of Instagram"

No wonder media hates tech.