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L.A. Times to Furlough Workers as Ad Revenue ‘Nearly Eliminated’

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Re: L.A. Times to Furlough Workers as Ad Revenue ‘Nearly Eliminated’

#71
post #54
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems pretty clear to me that California has so few cases precisely because of the measures it has taken.

what you said is probably true. And it does not contradict “the cure should not be worse than the disease” statement

It does, because the statement “the cure should not be worse than the disease” insinuates we’re overreacting.

Re: L.A. Times to Furlough Workers as Ad Revenue ‘Nearly Eliminated’

#72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there are so few cases in California because of the measures that have been taken This is probably true, but other countries haven't locked down hard and aren't seeing a big spread. Our options aren't binary. It's not as if the only choice is "Nuke everything" or "Surrender". The US is not a very densely populated country, and density seems to have the biggest impact on the spread of this thing. We probably could d…

> This is probably true, but other countries haven't locked down hard and aren't seeing a big spread. Which countries might that be? If you're referring to South Korea, they're ahead of the game enough on testing for this to be workable (unlike us). If you're referring to anyone else, they're simply not at that point yet in the curve, but will arrive there.

Various European countries. Sweden comes to mind.

Re: L.A. Times to Furlough Workers as Ad Revenue ‘Nearly Eliminated’

#73
post #58
post #20

Things are much worse at Gannett, parent company of usatoday. Personally, being laid off on March 31! Almost every employee is effected at this time, either furloughed for few hours a week, pay cut or let go !!

I'm surprised. I'd think online news would be one of the industries benefitting from this crisis. Is the revenue tied to lack of conversions on online ads?

maybe the advertisers are hurting and pulling their money? idk probably not but just a guess

Re: L.A. Times to Furlough Workers as Ad Revenue ‘Nearly Eliminated’

#74
post #58
post #20

Things are much worse at Gannett, parent company of usatoday. Personally, being laid off on March 31! Almost every employee is effected at this time, either furloughed for few hours a week, pay cut or let go !!

I'm surprised. I'd think online news would be one of the industries benefitting from this crisis. Is the revenue tied to lack of conversions on online ads?

It's tied to lack of ad spending. This is global across the entire advertising industry. Companies are spending less because of the pending recession and in particular they're spending a lot less on advertising, because people are not buying much right now (they often aren't even going anywhere for days at a time).

Re: L.A. Times to Furlough Workers as Ad Revenue ‘Nearly Eliminated’

#75
post #26

I’m definitely in the camp that “the cure cannot be worse than the disease” itself. Sitting in California where there are so few cases makes me wonder if the economic toll is totally worth it. Seems like we’ve used a tsunami to put out a campfire.

> I’m definitely in the camp that “the cure cannot be worse than the disease” itself. It seems to be forbidden to debate this unfortunately.

I see it brought up quite a bit on HN, and yet... very rarely with much rigor.

It is often of this sort of "I feel that the economic costs will be worse than the human life costs" without any hard backing to explain that. Challenging the opinions of the people getting airtime is fine, but only if you've got the material to back you up.

Otherwise it sounds just like wishful thinking.

Re: L.A. Times to Furlough Workers as Ad Revenue ‘Nearly Eliminated’

#76
post #33
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. Maybe we move to a model where low quality/#FakeNews is free but quality costs and, presumably, you then move to a point where pooled subscriptions are a thing under that model. And it costs a substantial amount of money or you get it through a library. There's a lot less accessibility under that model, especially for those that don't really have disposable income. There's also the question of whether enough wil…

>Maybe we move to a model where low quality/#FakeNews is free but quality costs Are you being facetious with the fake news reference? I don't know what the answer to this problem is, but I hope it isn't a system in which we just lie to poor people and they can only get the truth if they pay up. Prestige newspapers might not have been widely available for free, but there were certainly credible news sources that were.…

That is already happening. Both New York Times and the Washington Post use paywalls, whereas Fox News is totally free.

Re: L.A. Times to Furlough Workers as Ad Revenue ‘Nearly Eliminated’

#77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been very hard for me to understand this line of thinking. As I see it, there are so few cases in California because of the measures that have been taken. Do you think California would not have many more cases if the measures were relaxed? Or do you think that the cases would not be all that bad? Or do you think that they would only affect people that you aren't personally concerned about? I'm asking honestly fo…

> there are so few cases in California because of the measures that have been taken This is probably true, but other countries haven't locked down hard and aren't seeing a big spread. Our options aren't binary. It's not as if the only choice is "Nuke everything" or "Surrender". The US is not a very densely populated country, and density seems to have the biggest impact on the spread of this thing. We probably could d…

> other countries haven't locked down hard and aren't seeing a big spread

Let’s be precise. Some other countries haven’t locked down hard and aren’t seeing a big spread yet.

You mentioned Sweden. Here was Time a few days ago:

> A head doctor at a major hospital in Sweden says the current approach will “probably end in a historical massacre.” He says healthcare workers at his hospital who have tested positive for the virus but are asymptomatic have been advised to continue working. He asked to remain anonymous because “it is frowned upon to speak of the epidemic or to go against the official vision” but said he felt a need to speak out from an “ethical and medical point of view.”

Re: L.A. Times to Furlough Workers as Ad Revenue ‘Nearly Eliminated’

#78
This doesn't matter. Low quality news sources are a dime a dozen, and the good news costs money. You have to be sophisticated enough to be able to differentiate news sources. For instance, as a WSJ subscriber, I'm not going to read the editorials. They're complete garbage in terms of factual content. The business page is gold.

And this is very good. All the freeloaders who block ads and only use low-quality news will get poorer information and they will be out-competed. That's a good thing. Humanity will move forward. So block your ads on your ad-supported sources, grumble about "inequity of information", and exclaim in horror that you can't access good information because of a paywall. This is it. The future is here: ads are disappearing (temporarily, I think) and you're seeing what happens when your desired world comes to be.

There's no schadenfreude here. Many of you were just sawing on a branch you sat on, with the natural consequence. The LA Times railed against targeted advertising. Well, they got what they wanted. And now they're subject to the razor's edge that is the market.

Re: L.A. Times to Furlough Workers as Ad Revenue ‘Nearly Eliminated’

#79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been very hard for me to understand this line of thinking. As I see it, there are so few cases in California because of the measures that have been taken. Do you think California would not have many more cases if the measures were relaxed? Or do you think that the cases would not be all that bad? Or do you think that they would only affect people that you aren't personally concerned about? I'm asking honestly fo…

Sweden has far fewer cases and death rate without a massive lockdown. If this disease is really so deadly, why isn’t their country being massively depopulated? Same for states in the US that haven’t implemented any lockdown measures.

Sweden has the highest death rate per capita of all developed nations.

Re: L.A. Times to Furlough Workers as Ad Revenue ‘Nearly Eliminated’

#80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been very hard for me to understand this line of thinking. As I see it, there are so few cases in California because of the measures that have been taken. Do you think California would not have many more cases if the measures were relaxed? Or do you think that the cases would not be all that bad? Or do you think that they would only affect people that you aren't personally concerned about? I'm asking honestly fo…

> there are so few cases in California because of the measures that have been taken This is probably true, but other countries haven't locked down hard and aren't seeing a big spread. Our options aren't binary. It's not as if the only choice is "Nuke everything" or "Surrender". The US is not a very densely populated country, and density seems to have the biggest impact on the spread of this thing. We probably could d…

> - Dense city? Quarantine. - Moderately dense? High risk individuals quarantine, everyone else social distances, but works. - etc. Across the board, if your business is the sort that can WFH (such as software companies), then you do work from home. If not, then you're open, but with precautions. Restaurants are open, but pickup only, etc.

How is this _that_ much different from what's being done now?

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