91–100 of 193 posts
Personally just fucking let me pay $1 per article for me to read. I will NEVER subscribe to a recurring thing, but i bet you I'll start paying a lot, as I want to read many articles per month.
Paywall sure, but get the fucking subscription the hell away from me.
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…
> ...local news media lose their geographical monopoly I realize what you're saying, but really, local news will always have a geographical monopoly. Can the NYTimes or WSJ even think about covering local issues? How will investigative reporting function for say a local office holder or a local environmental problem? To my knowledge the real problem is that the traditional business model supporting reporting has drie…
And no, Twitter and Facebook are not suitable replacements.
I have long said the problem with paying for news is that it is rarely worth paying for. When I was in grad school there was a program that gave us "free" copies of the NYTimes and USA Today (I'm sure part of our tuition paid for it but all we had to do was swipe our student id to open the newspaper box). I would get them every day and there were rarely more than one story in them that I would actually read.
But what do they want? I mean aside from "make laws to force google to license our stuff, they must be forced to publish our stuff, and forced to pay for it", which is totally insane. Personally just fucking let me pay $1 per article for me to read. I will NEVER subscribe to a recurring thing, but i bet you I'll start paying a lot, as I want to read many articles per month. Paywall sure, but get the fucking subscript…
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…
Newspapers and Google/Facebook (hereinafter "Big Tech") are not competitors, regarding the product of news. The former produces news, the later does not. Access to news can be sold. Readers will pay for it.
The question is what exactly does Big Tech produce that is saleable. IOW, what does Big Tech produce that can be sold. What do they produce that people will pay for. With respect to news product, Big Tech are intermediaries, what we colloquially refer to as "middlemen".
Newspapers may be willing to provide some news "for free", e.g., via a website. However newspapers also can sell subscriptions. Newspapers have a saleable product. The saleable product is what attracts an audience, irrespective of whether readers are paying subscribers or not.
Big Tech generally provide access to the work of others "for free". Generally, Big Tech has no saleable products (cf. services) of their own labour. Any audience that Big Tech attracts is reliant on the products of others. Big Tech generally does not produce the content it uses to attract an audience. The content belongs to someone else.
To any reader who sincerely believes Big Tech has "products" (cf. services) of their own labour, please consider how much revenue could Big Tech "earn" without acting as intermediaries for the work product of others. IOW, how much revenue could Big Tech earn solely from selling their own "products". Would Big Tech still be "Big".
NB. "cf. services" as used above means please distinguish products (tangible) from services (intangible).
I have long said the problem with paying for news is that it is rarely worth paying for. When I was in grad school there was a program that gave us "free" copies of the NYTimes and USA Today (I'm sure part of our tuition paid for it but all we had to do was swipe our student id to open the newspaper box). I would get them every day and there were rarely more than one story in them that I would actually read.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
If their content is so interchangeable, why should they all stay in business?
I have long said the problem with paying for news is that it is rarely worth paying for. When I was in grad school there was a program that gave us "free" copies of the NYTimes and USA Today (I'm sure part of our tuition paid for it but all we had to do was swipe our student id to open the newspaper box). I would get them every day and there were rarely more than one story in them that I would actually read.
Maybe the problem wasn't the paper.
The New York Times' target audience isn't grad students. I don't think it's all that surprising that you weren't all that interested in it.
As we get older, we change. We learn more. We become interested in more things. Depending on how long it's been since grad school, you may be interested in what's in the Times now.
I know that I don't like the same thing I did back in grad school. I certainly know that I'm interested in more things than I was then.
When I was in grad school, I couldn't stand the taste of tapioca. Now, I love it.
I have long said the problem with paying for news is that it is rarely worth paying for. When I was in grad school there was a program that gave us "free" copies of the NYTimes and USA Today (I'm sure part of our tuition paid for it but all we had to do was swipe our student id to open the newspaper box). I would get them every day and there were rarely more than one story in them that I would actually read.
Sounds like a product designed to accommodate a wide set of interests for a diverse group of people. Are you sure you’re not just boring?
I'd imagine these lawsuits' chance of success will very strongly hinge on where they are impaneled. A jury in a conservative, working class or populist area will probably be pretty sympathetic to striking back at Big Tech, regardless of how weak the merits of the case are. An appeals court may later throw the verdict out. To my understanding, the US is the only developed democracy to still use juries for civil matter…
Why would you think the case is weak?
Documents recently disclosed by state AGs [1] strongly hinted at widespread fraud on AdX, Google's ad exchange. It was the top thread here about a month ago.
It's absolutely not surprising that in the light of these revelations, the primary victims of this fraudulent system seek reparation.
[1]: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.56...