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Over 200 newspapers now involved in lawsuits vs. Google, Facebook

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Re: Over 200 newspapers now involved in lawsuits vs. Google, Facebook

#51

Post by AnthonyMouse »

freediver wrote: post #43
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Subscriptions were always a pittance. It's not that they were a pittance, it's that they were eaten by the cost of printing and distribution. But the internet doesn't have that. The problem was the chronology of how this happened. Newspapers had paid print subscribers and advertisers and were profitable. Then the advertisers were eaten by eBay and Craigslist, so they went into the red. But their paid subscribers we…

I mostly agree with your assessment apart from this part: > Without that need, you end up with individuals doing reporting on substack. Content that is produced on substack is opinion, not news. It is produced from a comfort of a chair, not from a war zone or a hurricane zone. Nothing wrong with that (if opinion is what you are after), but you actually need to have a news organization to produce news coverage. A sing…

> A single person can not do it in a professional and repeatable way.

Putting aside whether this is even true, there is no requirement for a substack to always be exactly one individual, or for that individual to be unable to hire a third party proof reader or fact checker. That still doesn't require a billion dollar media corporation.

There is also no requirement for it to be opinion rather than factual reporting. Most of what existing large media companies produce is not factual reporting.

Re: Over 200 newspapers now involved in lawsuits vs. Google, Facebook

#52

Post by colinmhayes »

freediver wrote: post #4

Newspapers allowed Google and Facebook to drag them to their territory of online ad-monetized business models in which they have no way of competing (because of tech discrepancy). This then led to deterioration of journalism and its inevitable transformation into sensationalism and entertainment, again driven by the incentives of the ad-monetized business model, because clickbait makes more ad money. It is a sad stat…

No one is willing to pay for news because as soon as a piece is published there are thousands of other publishers posting copycat articles. The copycats have next to zero expenses and post on aggregators like facebook with no fee so everyone just reads them. It's a tragedy of the commons that only the government can solve since people prefer to read their news through facebook/google blurbs for free.

Re: Over 200 newspapers now involved in lawsuits vs. Google, Facebook

#53

Post by FridayoLeary »

enobrev wrote: post #23
cageface wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Newspapers and magazines have derived most of their revenue from ads since long before Google and Facebook. They're lucky to break even on subscription fees.

This is right. It's not Facebook that ate the media's lunch, it was craigslist, ebay, and any marketplace that allows free listings. They've been trying to make up that revenue ever since. Subscriptions were always a pittance. That's not to say Facebook didn't make things worse. They make everything worse; They even ruined wishing friends happy birthday. But the news vs the internet is a much older story than middle-…

>They make everything worse

I would go further. Facebook are just filling in a need and by doing so, making it worse. They never created anything. Calling the problem 'Facebook' won't help in the broader sense, i think that ultimately it's a distraction but people are happy with it because it allows them to outsource their problems rather then acknowledge them.

Re: Over 200 newspapers now involved in lawsuits vs. Google, Facebook

#54

Post by colinmhayes »

cblconfederate wrote: post #20
NikolaNovak wrote: post #2

On one hand, if there is a new media outlet via new distribution model that's winning the market, fair. So if an online-only news source is taking away traffic and money away from physical newspapers, there's part of me that'll feel sad, but whatcha gonna do. On the other hand though, it's a completely different model in my mind to scrape/link/copy/extract somebody else's hard work and news and editorials; and then b…

The sad thing is that newspapers allow that themselves. They can block out google and FB but they don't want to. It's a similar tragic fate to that of a drug addict. However if content-makers want to overcome this they need to cut off big tech access to their content, at least temporarily. The frontpage of HN is mostly news articles and some blogs. They get a lot of exposure, a lot of readership. Yet somehow google +…

Facebook and Google control demand. If a newspaper doesn't let them post their content the aggregators will just grab an article that is nominally the same from a different publisher that does provide them access.

Re: Over 200 newspapers now involved in lawsuits vs. Google, Facebook

#55

Post by giarc »

gerash wrote: post #47

The most important factor is that on the internet local news media lose their geographical monopoly. So everyone can subscribe to NYT or WSJ no matter where they live. This effectively creates a winner takes all situation like in many other industries which get closer to a free market. Add to that the fact that classified ads have been taken over by likes of ebay, LinkedIn, craigslist, etc. Basically the business mod…

Hasn't that always been the case? Even before the internet, I remember seeing copies of the NYT or WSJ on newsstands everywhere. I believe you could subscribe and it would get delivered to your door.

Re: Over 200 newspapers now involved in lawsuits vs. Google, Facebook

#57

Post by babypuncher »

freediver wrote: post #4

Newspapers allowed Google and Facebook to drag them to their territory of online ad-monetized business models in which they have no way of competing (because of tech discrepancy). This then led to deterioration of journalism and its inevitable transformation into sensationalism and entertainment, again driven by the incentives of the ad-monetized business model, because clickbait makes more ad money. It is a sad stat…

The problem with monetizing news the old fashioned way is cultural. When a user posts a paywalled article on Reddit or Tildes or any number of other similar sites, they are often crucified for it and asked to post low quality blogspam versions instead. People are used to the idea that news should be free, and seem unwilling to give up that idea.

Re: Over 200 newspapers now involved in lawsuits vs. Google, Facebook

#58

Post by oh_sigh »

freediver wrote: post #34
deadalus wrote: post #28

I HATE clicking on a Google link and discovering that it's paywalled. It's a massive waste of time.

How is Google supposed to know if you have access or not? (because if you have, and it doesn't show you the relevant result, it is doing a disservice to you)

Google could log which sites have a paywall, and put an icon next to search result that you might need to pay money to access the article. I could also let google know which sites I subscribe to and if I have a WSJ subscription, it could rank those articles a little higher to similar results on sites I don't have a subscription to. For example, something similar happens when you google TV shows, e.g. https://www.google.com/search?q=mad+men

There is a panel on the right hand side showing which streaming services stream the show. I can tell google which ones I have and it will improve the recommendations based on that.

Re: Over 200 newspapers now involved in lawsuits vs. Google, Facebook

#60

Post by joedevon »

tqi wrote: post #31
imachine1980_ wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you realy think the value they give to communities is less than have 100$ job post

People have a really rosy memory of local newspapers, but I grew up in a small midwest town with an "award winning" local newspaper in pre internet days, and I remember it mostly consisting of poorly written drivel and AP wire articles.

I'm sure it was a mixed bag but Corporate Media did not break the Epstein story. They famously avoided it, @see Amy Robach and ABC News leak. The Miami Herald, a local paper, broke the story thanks to a great journalist there.

IMO you are really discounting just how massive the importance of local journalism has historically been.

PE firms are now buying up and destroying these once great outlets, including the Miami Herald.

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