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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’

#91

Post by CydeWeys »

xhkkffbf wrote: post #14
DenisM wrote: post #2

In related news I have noticed that most things I search on Google don't show any ads at all. I went hunting for it and found that common household items are showing ads, but other things don't. And most certainly there is no obnoxiousness like an entire page of ads before the content.

I think Google and Facebook are going to deliver a very surprising result.

Well, ad revenue is gonna be off a cliff in the next quarterly earnings, but I don't think that's going to be a surprise. Good thing they have so much cash saved up.

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

#92

Post by epicureanideal »

OatMilkLatte wrote: post #11
ghaff wrote: post #7

We've already been seeing this to some degree with harder and harder paywalls--which mostly don't work besides lucrative niche and global brands. But I suspect we're increasingly headed towards a case where quality content is only available to those willing and able to pay for it.

Which is how it worked before the internet.

...And which also might be better in the long run for everyone. It aligns the incentives better I think.

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

#93

Post by renewiltord »

fibers wrote: post #86
renewiltord wrote: post #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…

You should lobby your government to ban ads then.

That sounds like a foolish use of my time when I can simply watch other people do it for me. And I want a greater difference between me and them. I want them to be wrong and for me to be right. This only helps.

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

#94

Post by robocat »

christophilus wrote: post #47
thaumaturgy wrote: post #35

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…

> density seems to have the biggest impact on the spread of this thing

Pick two random people Jo and Chris. If Jo wants to pass a letter from hand to hand via intermediary carriers so it gets to Chris, what’s the shortest time for it to get to Chris?

Ways to slow down the letter passing are to prevent long distance connections (close airports), slow down connections (only go to supermarket once a week), remove connections (close pubs).

To avoid any carriers passing a letter to you, you want to avoid: highly connected social people; gatherings of connected people; reduce number of meetings.

Density is one aspect, but perhaps not the most important.

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

#96

Post by renewiltord »

egypturnash wrote: post #84
renewiltord wrote: post #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…

All the freeloaders who block ads and only use low-quality news will get poorer information and they will be out-competed And they will go vote for the candidates who is best at grabbing them by their poorly-informed emotions.

Other people's predictability is opportunity. This is not an undesirable outcome.

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

#97

Post by ideophobia »

0x8BADF00D wrote: post #56
thaumaturgy wrote: post #35

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.

A Forbes headline from today reads "Sweden: 22 Scientists Say Coronavirus Strategy Has Failed As Deaths Top 1,000"

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

#98

Post by CydeWeys »

0x8BADF00D wrote: post #56
thaumaturgy wrote: post #35

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.

It is. The ongoing data already show it. And in another month or two it's going to be really obvious how much worse they were hit by countries that locked down sooner (I say sooner because at this rate it seems inevitable that Sweden will be forced into some form of lockdown too, just tragically too late to save many tens of thousands of lives). Let's regroup in a couple months and see precisely how poorly their strategy turned out.

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

#99

Post by slg »

ghaff wrote: post #49
slg wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.…

>Are you being facetious with the fake news reference? Not really. Broadcast news is ad-supported too--hence the decline in quality. You either have subscriptions--ad-supported, or taxpayer supported--as has been historically the case in the UK. So, yes, if ads don't work, either only the wealthier get access to higher quality news, people use libraries (good luck with that), or the government funds (which has its ow…

Ok, I understand your reasoning. The use of the specific term "fake news" rubbed me the wrong way. That term is linked with malicious propaganda so your initial comment called to mind dystopian ideas of having an underclass that the rest of society agrees to keep in their place through lies and deceit.

There are other options beyond just ad supported and tax payer supported. You can make news reporting a requirement of other government deals like what happened with over the air TV. You can do some sort of patronage model. That can range anywhere from a single source like people expected Bezos to handle WaPo, to the NPR model over numerous patrons, to the early internet model of still selling subscriptions but not putting the news behind a paywall. I'm sure there are plenty of other models out there too.

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

#100

Post by volak »

joegahona wrote: post #80
christophilus wrote: post #47

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…

> - 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?

Michigan has banned selling seeds.

Governors are forcing businesses closed or no seating allowed.

Those guidelines are good ones to maintain for perpetuity. Would decrease the thousands of flu deaths we see each year too but today's situation is closer to a nationwide lockdown than a PSA about washing hands

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