Did you know that Peter Thiel, in his own words, decided to "create a shell company to hire former investigative reporters and lawyers to _find_ causes of action against Gawker", and to then give it a starting timeline and budget of "three to five years and $10 million"?
Cool.
As I said, you can point the finger at the "Billionaire" but at the end of the day Gwaker's is liable for their unlawful behavior resulting in damages, that can't be blamed on Thiel. A Jury found Gwaker liable and awarded Hogan $140M, that bankrupted Gawker, not Thiel.
If Gawker didn't willfully publish stolen sex tapes of Hulk Hogan in violation of his rights, then Thiel would have wasted $10M and 3-5 years looking for something that doesn't exist, and they would still be in business.
Most small businesses would suffer no harm at all from an adversary with an initial $10MM allocated toward an attack. After all, most businesses have no employees who have ever done anything even remotely questionable. And besides, it's super cheap and easy to win in court if truth and justice are on your side. (and the same in print; there's no way to for an investigative journalist to create disproportionately bad press)
You're definitely correct, right, and very smart. I agree with all of your points.
If those small businesses had done shitty things like Gawker, then let them suffer!