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

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461–470 of 568 posts

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

#461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

25,832 deaths in the US from COVID-19 isn't really all that bad, huh?

In a population of 325 million, not really. I remember back in March when the media was saying at least 6 million people would die and that bodies would be piling up in the streets. Currently seems like the biggest threat will be unemployment and continued economic downturn

You do realize there are countries who didn't act in time where the bodies literally are piling up in the streets right?

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

#462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

25,832 deaths in the US from COVID-19 isn't really all that bad, huh?

In a population of 325 million, not really. I remember back in March when the media was saying at least 6 million people would die and that bodies would be piling up in the streets. Currently seems like the biggest threat will be unemployment and continued economic downturn

Ah, you're one of those people that looks at 25,000 dead in ~41 days AFTER shelter-in-place provisions and thinks it's not a big deal. Gotcha.

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

#463
post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope you're not looking at case numbers, because Sweden is so far behind on testing compared to most of europe. Look at the rate of growth for deaths per day (filtering out weekends because obviously swedes refuse to die on weekends) Most places are seeing a plateau in number of daily deaths while Sweden is still growing exponentially

I'm looking at deaths per capita. It can still be manipulated but it's the hardest to manipulate.

Look at the trend... 15% of their deaths happened in the past 24 hours

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

#464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

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

#465
I understand modern media is slinging fear and outrage because that's what gets clicks, but their whole business model is anachronistic. I've watched previously reasonable publications go from honest fact-based reporting to pure narrative/agenda based drivel. Like wow, Washington Post, what happened bro?

If most media organizations went out of business from the impending COVID economic catastrophe, I think that would be karmic justice. They did their part to cause it after all. The stress they've induced, the fear they've sown; they've earned every bad thing that befalls them.

It's time for a new paradigm. Long form journalism as we knew it is gone. But there are other formats ascending. Podcasts, Youtube series, etc are all possibilities to fill the void of in depth reporting. Time will tell if someone can figure it out, but our current media is a problem, not an answer.

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

#466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

ten thousand people pay ten cents to read an article. Yay, that's $1000!

The aggregator takes his cut, so now it's $900.

Taxes, $700.

So about $18 per hour pay for a single reporter assuming it only takes 40 hours to write the article.

And to be blunt, no one is going to pay more than ten cents.

The spotify model does not work to support creation of new works; it only causes monetization of an older back catalog or "gift" works where people essentially give it away while working their day job.

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

#467

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…

This is similar to asking why there isn't a SaaS subscription service aggregating all of the SaaS products that lets you pay $1 to use any SaaS product for a day. It's not really sustainable to run a business by having people pay you smaller amounts and more sporadically.

Microtransactions in that way don't generate enough revenue to pay for the up-front work required to create a story like the oxycontin one mentioned in a separate thread here. A story like that costs thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours of work to create. It's not feasible to spend all that up-front work all for the possibility someone will maybe pay $1 to read it.

How about this. If you read, say, 10 articles in a month from a publication, go ahead and purchase a subscription. Financially, it should cost you the same as your proposed microtransaction scheme, but it is much more sustainable for the business you're supporting.

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

#468
post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a few quarters. They'll survive and be back where they are now when the economy bounces back (whenever that may be). They could take a 100% cut for several quarters without cutting expenses. Small ad companies are the ones that will really suffer. They don't have Google's deep pockets and diversification.

Until then people might learn that an online experience without ads is possible.

until a lot of the sites go belly up, as well as many of their content creators.

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

#469
post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I don't want to subscribe to just one paper. There are so many good articles in all the papers. A few years back I just went ahead and subscribed to the ones I wanted to support to try to support journalism. It was more affordable than I thought, but there is friction to keep them from taking advantage of you. For instance, at one point it was cheaper for me to subscribe to the Sunday edition of the NY Times to get…

Wow! That's commendable. What is the total tab for all your subscriptions?

I think it is $59.90 if I added correctly. All are digital only subscriptions and do not include additional tiered access they may offer. IE: NY Times crosswords, LA times in person events, etc. The Guardian is a yearly subscription promo and will increase to around $19 a month when it ends.

NY Times $8.00 (yearly promo)

LA Times $14.99

Washington Post $3.99 (prime discount)

Cincinnati Enquirer $7.59

St. Louis Post Dispatch $6.59

Las Vegas Review Journal $4.99

The Guardian US Edition $13.75 (yearly promo)

I find the subscriptions to be of great value.

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

#470
post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well for example there's lots of non-essential business that can operate while enforcing social distancing. Closing bars and restaurants makes sense. But closing stores were you walk in and walk out does not make sense. Banning fishing doesn't make sense. Very broad strokes have been used to lock stuff down.

It could depend on the store. Over here in The Netherlands, most supermarkets have, to various degrees, implemented measures to protect workers (plexiglass, timed restocking, etc.) and measures to encourage social distancing (reminders and lines on the floors, a maximum number of customers via a set number of carts and having an employee wipe down the carts and handing them out manually at the entrance, old-people-ho…

I guess what I’d like is for the gov to provide methods that would allow business to remain open if they complied with certain measures. They shouldn’t need their own expert, the gov should be able to provide measures.
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