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Google threatens to cut off news after California proposes paying media outlets

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Re: Google threatens to cut off news after California proposes paying media outlets

#141

Post by aetherson »

adrr wrote: post #135
burnte wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually agree with it too. Google and Facebook aren't the reason news outlets have cash problems and a free teat to latch on to isn't the answer. News is important, but let's fix the problem in a better way.

What is the problem with news? Why aren't people willing to pay for it?

Because people don't value it.

I mean, seriously, that's the reason.

Back when newspapers were healthy, basically there was all this stuff that was bundled with the actual news that was of more immediate utility to people: classifieds, movie reviews, comics, coupons. And there was less competition for people's leisure time.

News is now in a very competitive leisure time landscape and is debundled from stuff that's of high value, and most people just don't care that much about news. They'll read it when it's around but they won't pay for it. The ones who are willing to pay for it mostly just subscribe to the New York Times because in a nationalized news environment why not go for the biggest producer.

Re: Google threatens to cut off news after California proposes paying media outlets

#142

Post by paxys »

tomcar288 wrote: post #95

why can't the news outlets just charge people when they arrive on the site? just paywall it and let people read the article for like 5 cents or something? i know this has been tried and supossedly didn't work. but why not? I would gladly be willing to pay 5 cents to read an article I like but I sure as hell am not going to shell out 250$+ yearly subscription for it (just to read one article), like most news sites do…

Because news organizations are used to double and triple dipping (get revenue from subscriptions, from advertising, and now from incoming links), and when things didn't go their way they are using their enormous lobbying power to force it to be so.

Re: Google threatens to cut off news after California proposes paying media outlets

#143

Post by reissbaker »

adrr wrote: post #135
burnte wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually agree with it too. Google and Facebook aren't the reason news outlets have cash problems and a free teat to latch on to isn't the answer. News is important, but let's fix the problem in a better way.

What is the problem with news? Why aren't people willing to pay for it?

Journalism quality has tanked, and social media acts as some degree of (free+fast) competition, furthering the death spiral.

Re: Google threatens to cut off news after California proposes paying media outlets

#144

Post by realusername »

shadowgovt wrote: post #133
realusername wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing is AI based here, the newspaper give themselves what they want to show on Google. So of they are not okay with the content they send, they can just send an empty string instead. The newspapers are in full control here and always have been.

Except that they're not, because they know that in this modern era, people use search to find information. So if they don't want to become irrelevant, they have to play the game; they can't just robots.txt-exclude Google, they'll be tossed into the wastebin of history against other news sources that people can just find with a click. It's not real choice when the choice is "Let this company harvest your information o…

It's not any different than the newspaper stalls of the past. The newspapers show their title and cover for free on the street as well to get somebody to pick them up. And same as in the past, nobody wanted to show a blank page on the street either.

Where the newspapers are struggling in isn't getting traffic but in converting this traffic to paid customers and Google isn't responsible of any of that problem.

Re: Google threatens to cut off news after California proposes paying media outlets

#146

Post by [deleted] »

burnte wrote: post #130
kemayo wrote: post #6

I agree with Google on this one. Charging a fee just for linking to something is a bad idea. It does get fuzzier if you're also summarizing, and there's clearly some sort of spectrum from "just the URL" to "AI synopsis of the entire article". But at the level we see on Google News (headline + maybe a picture), I don't feel there's any good justification for charging.

I actually agree with it too. Google and Facebook aren't the reason news outlets have cash problems and a free teat to latch on to isn't the answer. News is important, but let's fix the problem in a better way.

[deleted]

Re: Google threatens to cut off news after California proposes paying media outlets

#148

Post by kube-system »

standardUser wrote: post #127
johnea wrote: post #36

If you're using goggle as your news source, you're already assimilated... I'd be happy if the entire goggle corps left California: take my monopoly, please...

I would hope most consumers of news understand the difference between a source and an aggregator.

I don't think most consumers of news content really think about the difference between a source, a syndicate, or an aggregator. And a significant portion likely don't know the difference. Media literacy is a significant problem, both in the US and in many parts of the world.

Re: Google threatens to cut off news after California proposes paying media outlets

#149

Post by abdullahkhalids »

kemayo wrote: post #6

I agree with Google on this one. Charging a fee just for linking to something is a bad idea. It does get fuzzier if you're also summarizing, and there's clearly some sort of spectrum from "just the URL" to "AI synopsis of the entire article". But at the level we see on Google News (headline + maybe a picture), I don't feel there's any good justification for charging.

Just to think about this more, are there any other business types, besides online news, where your success so radically depends on the decisions (read google news ranking and summarization algorithms) of some other business that you have zero relations with.

Google news+facebook+twitter can drastically change the revenue of any online news site with an internal decision. Where else do we see something like this in the economy?

EDIT: the criteria of zero business relationship between your entire product class and the Big Business is critical; otherwise lots of examples exist.

Re: Google threatens to cut off news after California proposes paying media outlets

#150

Post by paxys »

"The news media industry is dying because of tech" is a massively successful myth perpetuated by the news media industry.

Back in the day before tech platforms there used to be 5 successful news companies and 5 failing ones. Today there are 5 successful news companies and 500 failing ones. Tech reduced the barriers to entry and made the playing field more level, giving rise to smaller publications and indie journalism. But the appetite for news consumption is still the same, so everyone can't be successful.

Lobbying and passing rent-seeking laws only helps the conglomerates on the top.

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