L.A. Times to Furlough Workers as Ad Revenue ‘Nearly Eliminated’ • Hacker News Board

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

#411

Post by LeoTinnitus » Wed, Apr 15, 2020, 2:00 PM UTC

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…

I've read doctors have just been attributing deaths that look like Covid 19 to exactly that. Even without proper verification.

Also it's only what is reported. There could've been a million people with it in the US but nobody knew...and still don't.

I really agree that we used a tsunami to put out a campfire. There was no reason to close everything basically. If this was like a 25% mortality rate of all those who got it, then yeah, the response would've been appropriate. This is like less than a percent for the majority of the population, a few percent for infants, and a few extra percent for old people. Which already have been at risk just for the sake of being old.

This whole event is just the media at large and social media blindly following as well overexaggerating this "crisis." 2008 was a crisis cause a bubble burst and banks defaulted. This was something made up that really did not need to be this drastic.

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

#412

Post by streb-lo » Wed, Apr 15, 2020, 2:02 PM UTC

koheripbal wrote: post #357

rgovostes wrote: post #125

The LA Times's investigation into Purdue Pharma in 2016 revealed internal Purdue documents demonstrating the company's culpability in fueling the opioid crisis. > The documents provide a detailed picture of the development and marketing of OxyContin, how Purdue executives responded to complaints that its effects wear off early, and their fears about the financial impact of any departure from 12-hour dosing. I don't h…

We exactly need to reward original investigative journalism like this with subscriptions. So few "journalists" do anything more than repeat twitter trends these days.

The journalists are just doing what their employer asks them too.

Their employer is trying to sell papers/clicks.

No enough people are willing to pony up for good journalism like the parent comment -- I'm generalizing but most people don't even like to read long form journalism anymore.

If we want to know why journalism sucks we need to look in the mirror.

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

#413

Post by rsweeney21 » Wed, Apr 15, 2020, 2:04 PM UTC

There is no point in advertising if no one can buy your product right now. Retailers, dine-in restaurants, movies, hotels, travel, pro sports, big clothing brands, concerts, events, tourism. The list goes on and it is massive. All these industries are huge spenders on advertising.

Then there are all the products and services that _could_ be bought, but consumers and companies have pulled back on because of uncertainty. Why waste money on ads for TVs, new phones, SaaS software, hiring, etc?

We left our ads running even though conversion rates dropped by 75% because Google offered something like $!00M in ad credits for small businesses. We applied for the program but haven't heard anything. It might be time for us (marketplace for quality contract work) to stop spending on ads too.

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

#414

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Apr 15, 2020, 2:06 PM UTC

ninkendo wrote: post #283

CydeWeys wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

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

#415

Post by TheCondor » Wed, Apr 15, 2020, 2:10 PM UTC

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.

Don’t we need to see the end results to know? If we can somehow bootstrap the economy quickly and there is pent up demand, maybe this is just a short temporal blip with relatively limited impact. If it’s the next big depression and takes 30 years to come out of then there certainly be plenty that will say we should have done nothing and just taken it on the chin.

I’m predicting that we will panic at the financial numbers, open things up in June and then this fall there will be a bigger second wave, hopefully we stock the pantry with PPE and everything the medical professionals need in the mean time. It will be a Hail Mary, hoping we can get a vaccine in to play by September

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

#416

Post by GnarfGnarf » Wed, Apr 15, 2020, 2:11 PM UTC

tguedes wrote: post #367

GnarfGnarf wrote: post #361

Why has no one developed a news subscription service yet? I want to be able to pay 50¢ here or $1 there for an interesting article from NYT, WSJ, WaPo, Bloomberg, The Guardian, The New Yorker etc., without paying for a subscription. I can't afford to subscribe to all of them. There are not enough hours in the day for getting a return on my investment. New York Times $50/yr Wall Street Journal $100 Bloomberg $420 LA T…

The issue is you're looking at the value from journalism wrong. If you were to actually pay the cost of producing 1 article, it would be significantly more than you would be willing to pay to read it. What you are paying for when you pay for journalism is not the value you perceive from reading the individual articles, but of supporting the entire organization's on-going production of journalism. You are a patron mor…

But... thousands of people are paying to read that one article. The combined volume of all the people, who pay to read the same article, will pay for the cost of researching and writing the article.

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

#417

Post by CydeWeys » Wed, Apr 15, 2020, 2:13 PM UTC

PunchTornado wrote: post #267

chewz wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess Denmark and Norway as both Nordic countries with similiar wealth and culture are as similar to Sweden as possible.

one can argue that Sweden has a larger immigrant population than those countries. Majority of deaths in Sweden are from immigrant populations. They are blamed for not following the social distancing rules that most Swedens follow day to day. Also they are poorer, live in larger families in small houses etc. and it is harder for them to follow the rules.

One can also argue that the virus doesn't care about your ethnicity, and just because it's hit some particular community hard first doesn't mean it's not going to spread through the rest of your society too absent serious measures being taken. In the US, focusing on the "others" who had the virus, in our case the Chinese, while not taking effective measures early enough to stop the disease, was a huge mistake. It was a distraction, an excuse for racism and not doing more. This is not just a disease of poor immigrants. It's coming for everyone.

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

#418

Post by _ea1k » Wed, Apr 15, 2020, 2:15 PM UTC

jacobolus wrote: post #77

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…

> 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…

I keep hearing these stories about how Sweden's approach will end in disaster, but their new case rate is ~500 per day with >10,000 existing cases. A 5% growth rate of new cases strongly implies that they are already past the peak.

What am I missing that would imply things are about to get vastly worse there?

(I do see some other specific mistakes there that lead to a higher death rate, but I don't see the concern about things suddenly getting worse in the future)

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

#419

Post by GnarfGnarf » Wed, Apr 15, 2020, 2:16 PM UTC

iso1631 wrote: post #383

GnarfGnarf wrote: post #361

Why has no one developed a news subscription service yet? I want to be able to pay 50¢ here or $1 there for an interesting article from NYT, WSJ, WaPo, Bloomberg, The Guardian, The New Yorker etc., without paying for a subscription. I can't afford to subscribe to all of them. There are not enough hours in the day for getting a return on my investment. New York Times $50/yr Wall Street Journal $100 Bloomberg $420 LA T…

They did - https://www.axate.com/ for example

Looks good -- you pay as you go. However, their publishers are unknowns, no big names. Nothing I'd be interested in.

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

#420

Post by CydeWeys » Wed, Apr 15, 2020, 2:16 PM UTC

chasd00 wrote: post #410

thaumaturgy wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm. One of the traits of this virus that makes it so different from past potential epidemics is that it's able to spread rapidly through a population for up to two weeks before it starts becoming "visible" (symptoms start to arrive in large enough numbers to become alarming). At the tail end of those two weeks, the infection may have spread enough to become very difficult to control. So, if we took some kind of midd…

Another complication and I'm sure the task force is wrestling with this. If you undo the restrictions you're never going to be able to put them back in place and have the adherence you did the first time. I just don't believe the people will accept being on lock-down for weeks, then getting a taste of getting back to work and then being asked to go back on lock-down. I also didn't believe people in the US would follo…

Ooof, I hope you're wrong about this, and that people would enjoy more having sporadic periods of freedom rather than months straight of lockdown, but I can't say that for sure. You may be right.