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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’

#281

Post by christophilus »

kitotik wrote: post #278
david38 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The good thing is we’ll see in the end. Lots of predictions. It’s almost as if you can’t be criticized for being too cautious. Sure, but the good will won’t last forever. The US accepts 22k deaths a year without blinking due to flu. That’s just the flu. What’s the magic number we’re willing to accept? 50k? 100? There has to be a percentage of the population we are willing to accept as casualty because we already do,…

Let’s not talk abstractly. How many deaths within your family and circle of friends are you willing to accept?

The logic still applies. Obviously, I hope for zero deaths. But I also don’t forbid them from driving, despite the high number of deaths for that mode of travel. I don’t tell them to quarantine themselves every flu season.

Anyway, I’m not sure we’ve overreacted. I’m just saying it’s possible and it’s pretty amazing how it’s hard to have a conversation about it. People treat the topic like there’s only one answer and anyone who dissents is a murderer.

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

#282

Post by willis936 »

jeltz wrote: post #231
chewz wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On a per capita basis sweden isn't really more worse off than many other countries that have shutdown. This is so untrue. Norway and Denmark had initially many more cases then Sweden but since their curves flattened. As of yesterday Norway - 26 deaths / milion Sweden - 102 deaths / million Denmark - 52 deaths / milion

But there is also "Beglium - 359 deaths / million" which had early lockdowns. They started their lockdown one day before Denmark. By cherry picking countries one can chose a story to tell. I think it is too early to say if Sweden's strategy was stupid or not.

Know what else Belgium has? A flattened growth rate. Sweden’s on alone a bad track.

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

#283

Post by ninkendo »

CydeWeys wrote: post #163
DuskStar wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And at least in Michigan, they're not taking the time to open up low risk businesses now - instead they're filling in even more of the gaps that allowed life to continue. No golf courses, even without any staff contact. No landscaping. No landscaping supplies . No motorboats or jet skis. No travel between two residences you own. But at least you can still buy lottery tickets!

Some of these can be explained at least. Landscaping is very non-essential, and it's hard to maintain social distancing while doing it because the way the crews operate is it's a bunch of guys riding together in one truck between each job sites (it's not a caravan of different vehicles, one per vehicle). Additionally, my mom has been complaining about the landscapers where she lives and is angry that they're still al…

The talking point the anti-governor folks are repeating is that landscaping companies can’t even deliver mulch to your driveway. Which, sure, I guess that’s overly draconian but in the grand scheme of things I can’t bring myself to be angry about it.

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

#284

Post by simtel20 »

jeltz wrote: post #224
jacobolus wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Stockholm (the worst hit part of Sweden) has about half the deaths per capita of the state New York (26 deaths per 100k vs 56 deaths per 100k) despite Sweden having laxer restrictions. And Stockholm is generally more densely populated. So while I too am a bit skeptical of the Swedish policies it is doing pretty average on a global scale. Worse than some countries with harsh lockdown but also better than some countrie…

Most of the cases in New York are concentrated in and around NYC, which is an international travel hub with 3 very busy international airports in the area. I don't think there are many places in the world which are going to have had the same number of asymptomatic and symptomatic carriers pass through. So on that basis I don't think it's a good benchmark for most other cities or countries to use.

I wonder if it's better to compare Swedens overall per-capita infection rates with other states in the US where there is a lockdown but whose capitals/major cities are more secondary cities from the perspective of international travel. Let's try North Carolina (picked for being closest in population to SE and also being not a top airport hub or travel destination compared to its neighbors) though it does have significant business and educational centers, it's probably a fair comparison to Sweden wrt population density.

NC total population: 10.5 million NC confirmed cases: 7,285

SE total population: 10.2 million SE confirmed cases: 11,445

So anyway, there are other states and countries that are doing better and worse than Sweden, but I don't think that Sweden is in any way demonstrating that it is doing better by trying to ignore the problem and possibly to blame the lack of strict enough sanitation ("lack of supplies and poor routines"), it's just coming later than to higher-volume travel centers like WA, NYC, the UK, France, Italy, etc.

In any case, the idea of doing better or worse will, in the end, be measured in per capita deaths at the end of this disaster, and we haven't gotten there yet. I truly hope that Sweden finds its way through with as few deaths as possible, but I don't think that's what they've done.

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

#285

Post by nkozyra »

Jommi wrote: post #156
bootlooped wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brands are sensitive to where their ads appear. Many brands do not want their ads adjacent to COVID 19 content.

I'm still unsure how and if this is really even true nowadays. We have been doing programmatic ads for ages. We should be over this.

For regular run of site ad buys, you're right. And a lot of CMS and ad systems come with a way to flag content as sensitive. For a small ad buy, nobody cares that much.

For big campaigns - bread and butter for print and web - different story. These are carefully designed in-your-face takeover ads and the brands care much more how they're presented.

The bigger problem is ad sales for newspapers is usually just AdSense backfill or national sales from the parent company. The former is just beer money unless your publication is NYT size, the latter is drying up because there's nobody to sell to!

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

#286

Post by mercer »

fullshark wrote: post #60
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…

I personally think something should have been done, but it's an open question if we went too far or not far enough and am willing to listen to the argument that we went too far. It's unlikely what was done was the absolute perfect policy prescription given all the trade offs involved. Personally I'm looking to Sweden's data, a country that instituted some social distancing measures (no crowds above 50) but not all (R…

> and am willing to listen to the argument that we went too far.

In all honesty I want to do the same. But upon reflecting, that's more to do with my desire for things to 'return to normal' than anything else.

There's so much we don't know yet. What if immunity isn't a thing (I'd say unlikely) or not as binary as we think (much more likely; multiple articles I've read indicate that having a mild version of this also provides mild inoculation)?

What if the hope of the 'iceberg' theory is untrue, or very selectively true?

What if allowing this thing to roam free and cause mass inoculation also leads to mutations that mess up our plans (unlikely, from what I've read about coronaviruses).

My point is that until we have a better grasp on these potentially game-changing issues, we should prioritize study, we should prioritize testing on mass scale, we should prioritize PPE for our health care workers, and we should prioritize finding ways to minimize the consequences of our possibly-too-careful aproach.

But we shouldn't let down on that 'over-careful' approach until we know more. Regardless of the economic impact.

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

#287

Post by Ensorceled »

tempsy wrote: 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.

Calculations for operating "business as usual" in the USA gave ranges from 1.7 to 5 million dead with extremes of 4-8% death rate (13+ million).

This is based on a collapsed health care system causing the vast majority of cases requiring ventilators to result in death.

Roll two die, if you roll snake eyes you would die.

But, in my experience, most people saying things like "cure cannot be worse than the disease" are young, healthy and have access to good health care. Would that describe you? My father is in the 18+% fatality zone.

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

#288

Post by kitotik »

christophilus wrote: post #281
kitotik wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let’s not talk abstractly. How many deaths within your family and circle of friends are you willing to accept?

The logic still applies. Obviously, I hope for zero deaths. But I also don’t forbid them from driving, despite the high number of deaths for that mode of travel. I don’t tell them to quarantine themselves every flu season. Anyway, I’m not sure we’ve overreacted. I’m just saying it’s possible and it’s pretty amazing how it’s hard to have a conversation about it. People treat the topic like there’s only one answer and…

The risks of driving and seasonal flu are fairly well understood. And there are mitigation’s in place: seatbelts, traffic laws, theraflu, flu shots, etc.

I’m not calling you a murderer. I’m asking you to put a hard number in the risk you are willing to absorb.

Mine is 0.

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

#289

Post by dx034 »

bootlooped wrote: post #118
tootie wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Brands are sensitive to where their ads appear. Many brands do not want their ads adjacent to COVID 19 content.

Apart from some online-only businesses, pretty much every business it cutting back at this point. Ads are one of the first ones to go. Esp. with the whole travel industry cutting by nearly 100%. Airlines, hotels and cruise ships spend a ton on ads and there's no point of running ads for them at this point.

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

#290

Post by ceilingcorner »

kitotik wrote: post #274
tempsy wrote: 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.

We’ve had more documented covid-19 deaths in ~6 weeks than we usually have murders in an entire year and it hasn’t even peaked yet. We have no clue how many cases there even are because we’ve utterly failed to do mass testing. Serious question: do you have any family, friends, or even acquaintances that you would prefer not to have 3-6 weeks of terror and complete misery with a non-trivial chance of permanent disabil…

Do you understand that millions of people are now out of work and won't be able to support their families, businesses are collapsing, calls to suicide lines are up massively, and society is general is not functioning?

This is a complex issue. Using hyperbolic emotional appeals to drown out discussion is not the right move.

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