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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

#291

Post by g8oz »

asow92 wrote: post #268
candiddevmike wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RE: 4, NPR seems to do OK, same with the BBC. You're choosing to implement all of these terrible things by continuing your employment, so you "not wanting them" is kind of moot. Find a different job if you genuinely don't agree with what you're building. I'm a firm believer that companies would stop doing this kind of crap if we, collectively as tech workers (even better as a union!), stopped implementing it .

NPR is very biased: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/11/business/media/npr-critic... And to be honest, I don't think most of these things are terrible per se, albeit mildly annoying. Also, I don't see what you're suggesting as realistic, but idealistic. You can try to unionize developers, but good luck with that because you'll just be replaced with overseas contractors. I'd rather keep my job and feed my family, thank…

Do you call that NPR story proof of a bias worse than what happens at other institutions? Or because it's biased in the direction that doesn't align with your views?

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

#292

Post by wrsh07 »

psychlops wrote: post #250
zmmmmm wrote: post #170

I have sympathy for news publishers but I worry a lot about the principle of asserting that linking to something is an act that the link target has proprietary rights to over. At some level, it is almost a free speech issue. If I can't refer to what you are saying, without owing you something, you have power over not just my speech, but a power to limit how your work is subjected to criticism and debate. It's effecti…

> and therefore directly tax the platforms and then redistribute the revenue to a fund created by government for news journalism themselves Having any government fund news journalism is a bad idea. In any event, you can be certain the revenue will be redistributed to fund the war machine in another country.

The BBC...?

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

#293

Post by g8oz »

1000100_1000101 wrote: post #272
asow92 wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a developer who works for one of these news publishers you have little sympathy for, what I can tell you is that: 1) Most people don't want to pay for news. Even $1/year is too high. 2) Ad CPMs are low—especially on iOS thanks to Apple's ATT—so we need more ads to make the same amount of revenue. 3) "SEO clickbait" (especially Taboola) helps keep the lights on. Click at your own peril. 4) If governments pay news o…

> 3) "SEO clickbait" (especially Taboola) helps keep the lights on. Click at your own peril. Sure, stand your customer base in a mine-field for some minor short-sighted profit. Implement this at your own peril.

Taboola and Outbrain should be the subject of a Department of Justice inquiry. Their whole business model seems to be facilitating scammers.

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

#294

Post by massysett »

jyunwai wrote: post #280
asow92 wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a developer who works for one of these news publishers you have little sympathy for, what I can tell you is that: 1) Most people don't want to pay for news. Even $1/year is too high. 2) Ad CPMs are low—especially on iOS thanks to Apple's ATT—so we need more ads to make the same amount of revenue. 3) "SEO clickbait" (especially Taboola) helps keep the lights on. Click at your own peril. 4) If governments pay news o…

> 1) Most people don't want to pay for news. Even $1/year is too high. Alternatives to increasing advertisements have been tried and found to work. However, these approaches may not be feasible for all publications—especially local news outlets that may not have as many resources. These approaches are to: i) Start selling other services besides news. The New York Times—one of the most currently financially successful…

> It's a tough problem to try and fund local news. There is civic value for one's community to have a platform for providing a check against corruption by various institutions—yet in practice, oftentimes not enough for most local residents purchase subscriptions.

Philanthropy and donations seem to be making headway here.

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

#295

Post by kQq9oHeAz6wLLS »

g8oz wrote: post #291
asow92 wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NPR is very biased: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/11/business/media/npr-critic... And to be honest, I don't think most of these things are terrible per se, albeit mildly annoying. Also, I don't see what you're suggesting as realistic, but idealistic. You can try to unionize developers, but good luck with that because you'll just be replaced with overseas contractors. I'd rather keep my job and feed my family, thank…

Do you call that NPR story proof of a bias worse than what happens at other institutions? Or because it's biased in the direction that doesn't align with your views?

I think the biggest complaint about NPR having a bias - any bias - is that it's publicly funded.

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

#296

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

It's like these so-called "tech" companies want people to believe the internet is useless without their "assistance".

As if no internet user could ever retrieve news from its source through the internet without using an intermediary website that performs surveillance, data collection and sells ad services. (And makes more money from ads than the news source.)

"Without intermediaries, this internet is useless. Cannot find anything. Cancel my subscription!"

Yeah, right. The internet is incredibly useful. "Big Tech" is not the internet. It's just a giant leech.

Why is "Big Tech" putting the squeeze on news organisations, killing off an essential function of a democratic society. What, are we suposed to stay informed via amateur blogs, Facebook pages and YouTube channels. It cannot kill the news businesss off completely, at least not yet, because it needs news organisations to produce the bait used to lure ad targets to its interstitial websites.

In the end "Big Tech" will have to pay. The only question is how much. The "We will cut off the news" negotiating tactics exemplify the total lack of humanity of the people behind the scenes at these intermediaries. That's what happens when someone spends their entire life in front of a computer screen.

No doubt these people believe all news is untrustworthy, worthless. No wonder they do not want to pay for it. Without that news product, they would have far less traffic and far less profit. Why else would they continue to intermediate it if it is not worth anything to them.

"Big Tech" needs to get into the content business or get out of the way. It's content that www users want. They do not care about some intermediary that has nothing to offer. Using these intermediaries to get content is just a means to end.

Not surprising that we are seeing an idea such as "generative AI". Copy content from others and then generate "new" content without having to pay anyone.

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

#297

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

asow92 wrote: post #258
notatoad wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I have sympathy for news publishers i have very little sympathy for news publishers. I have sympathy for the journalists actually doing journalism, but news publishers have spent the last couple decades making their websites absolutely unusable, so that unless somebody links to an article externally there's almost no point in going to their site directly. And even after you've followed that link it's almost impossib…

As a developer who works for one of these news publishers you have little sympathy for, what I can tell you is that: 1) Most people don't want to pay for news. Even $1/year is too high. 2) Ad CPMs are low—especially on iOS thanks to Apple's ATT—so we need more ads to make the same amount of revenue. 3) "SEO clickbait" (especially Taboola) helps keep the lights on. Click at your own peril. 4) If governments pay news o…

I'll pay $50 a year, but I better be able to cancel with a single click and no criminal shenanigans with fraudulent charges thereafter.

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

#298

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #149
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 th…

Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax usually have no business relation with their victims.

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

#299

Post by roenxi »

majormajor wrote: post #229
izacus wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To be fair they were just playing the game Google asked them to play. This outright BS. Noone asked them to fill their sites with popup videos, popup ads, spam and other garbage. Noone asked them to spam people with notifications in iOS either and Google didn't force them to do that either. Stop blaming Google for the deep rot within the news industry, they did it to themselves.

Google is DEEPLY and directly involved in the ecosystems that: * pay publishers more for showing video ads than showing text or image ads * encourages and creates invasive tracking Javascript and cookies-and-similar tricks * rewards SEO/spam tricks with higher placements in search

Advertisers have wanted moving ads since the dawn of the internet, and I'd be shocked if they weren't always willing to pay more to get them. But the big selling point of Google, and one of the drivers that got them to where they are today, is they looked at that money and said "no, it isn't worth it, this will compromise the user experience". Then they went with text ads on Google search.

Over the years I assume they've changed that decision along with the general cultural rot that comes to large companies, but there is a clear precedent. Publishers didn't have to take money to make their own product worse. They could have made their product good and tried to make money that way.

Although realistically these media companies are probably going to go out of business with the current model whatever they try. The internet has made a mockery of their credibility; the future seems to be podcasters with dedicated audiences going it alone or blogs - the costs are lower and the quality is generally higher.

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

#300

Post by makeitdouble »

afavour wrote: post #260
makeitdouble wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I kinda wonder at what point would Google enter the field by sucking AFP's feed, auto filtering it and AI generate articles. Yahoo News wasn't that, but a search engine getting into the news business would not be unprecedented.

All of this still requires actual journalism to happen at some point, though. Someone needs to conduct interviews. AI isn’t going to do that any time soon.

Yes, that work would still happen under AFP or any other aggregator that deals with sourcing the news, syndicate it and manage the revenue sharing.
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