> users that will likely never sign up to X, but who want to read/watch some content
They probably don't want their echo chamber leaking to the wider internet, because external discussion of the content would reveal it for the siloed thought bubble that it is.
Consider X now requires personal information to sign up, and after handing that info over, signups are often still rejected with no explanation given. Yet another tell they're very interested in maintaining that echo chamber.
I quit Twitter because a lot of the people I followed also quit so the site lost relevance/interest, but mainly because those who stay were turning slowly but steadily into something the network was clearly pushing. The force pushing of Elon twits into my timeline was too obvious, and once noticed that I noticed other less obvious pushes and even more insidious, silencing people I was interested in reading but suddenly their twits no longer pop in my timeline. I needed to go to their profile to read their twits.
In short, Twitter was actively pushing me into an echo chamber, even when my follows were diverse. Bluesky, Truth Social or Reddit are users that usually want to be in that echo chamber. At least bans are very notorious there, and not shadowbans/algorithm silencing while Elon says "I am a free speech absolutist".
> signups are often still rejected with no explanation given
That's pretty odd. When I google this, there are claims that this is to prevent spam accounts. Obviously, if you choose not to take them at their word, one can read all sorts of odd reasons into it.
To be clear I agree that another reason is pretty likely. I'm just phrasing it neutrally since I don't know.. Above all I'm saying it's weird. I'm used to thinking of twitter and all the others in the same category as wanting to drive user metrics up at the expense of a lot of other priorities. Preventing new accounts seems to run counter to expectations.
'Echo chamber' is an odd thing to say. X has many center left and hard left accounts, they're not banned in the same "women can't be men" was during Woke 1.0.
They probably don't want their echo chamber leaking to the wider internet, because external discussion of the content would reveal it for the siloed thought bubble that it is.
Consider X now requires personal information to sign up, and after handing that info over, signups are often still rejected with no explanation given. Yet another tell they're very interested in maintaining that echo chamber.