How Rumble, which claims to have 71M MAUs, became the only success story in right-wing social media by letting creators who are banned elsewhere monetize video
For a moment, the right's longtime dream of an alternative social media seemed within reach. Various companies had been trying … Tweets: @jwherrman , @ggreenwald , and @ben_kew Tweets: John Herrman / @jwherrman : elon buying twitter put most of the last crop of “alt social” platforms out of their misery. but one still has users, and an enormous amount of money to play with https://nymag.com/... Glenn Greenwald / @ggreenwald : I'm very pleasantly surprised by the fairness of this @NYMag article on the major success and rapid growth of Rumble. It not only fairly profiles the platform's free speech brand and its growth, but also avoids the cheap and false caricatures of it: https://nymag.com/... Ben Kew / @ben_kew : Rumble has set the standard on how to build a successful competitor to the Big Tech monopoly. https://nymag.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
The alt-social wave crested after January 6, when personalities saw follower surges on Telegram, Gab, and Gettr that later stalled almost everywhere — except on Rumble, which had spent 2021 building a war chest: an early round backed by Peter Thiel and J.D. Vance, then a SPAC listing at a $2.1B valuation. Its flywheel started earlier still, when Dan Bongino moved his show from YouTube and took equity, proving banned video creators could take their audience and revenue with them.
Elon Musk buying Twitter changed the map: John Herrman argues it put most of the last crop of alt-social platforms 'out of their misery' by removing the bans that justified them. Rumble is the exception Herrman profiles — the one platform still adding users (71M MAUs claimed) and sitting on enormous capital — and it quietly powers Donald Trump's Truth Social behind the scenes.
First-order effects
- Gab, Parler, and Gettr lose the last plausible argument for their existence: with Twitter reabsorbing right-wing conversation, Rumble becomes the only destination left that offers banned creators both reach and monetization.
- Truth Social's visitor gains over rivals depend on infrastructure Rumble supplies, deepening the dependency of the movement's flagship app on its one solvent competitor.
Second-order effects
- Banned video talent faces a single-bidder market: with no rival alt-video platform funded comparably, Rumble can dictate equity deals and revenue splits — the same playbook that brought Bongino aboard.
- Competitors without Rumble's balance sheet are forced to either fold or pivot away from pure 'free speech' positioning toward niches Rumble hasn't claimed.
Third-order effects
- If Musk-owned Twitter keeps absorbing casual right-wing posting while moderation decisions remain contested, right-wing media consolidates structurally around one capitalized video platform — turning 'alternative social media' from a movement of many startups into a single company with public-market accountability via its SPAC.
- The surviving model suggests deplatforming economics favor platforms that own the monetization layer, not just the hosting: whoever pays banned creators wins them, regardless of which way mainstream policy swings.
The trend: Right-wing social media is collapsing from a crowded field of ban-refuge startups into one capitalized video incumbent, with creator monetization — not ideology alone — deciding the survivors.