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Macworld lays off most staff

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Re: Macworld lays off most staff

#51

Post by UVB-76 »

untog wrote: post #16
UVB-76 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely that's better than laying them off the day before the event? Attending events like the one yesterday has to be one of the best perks of the job, and if any of the employees had wind of what was coming, it would have been a great place to network for their next opportunity.

Attending events like the one yesterday has to be one of the best perks of the job Are you serious? Live blogging events like that is utter misery. Constant stress for an entire day.

Absolutely. I would pay good money to be flown out to Cupertino, CA with a press pass to liveblog an Apple keynote, let alone be paid to do it.

Re: Macworld lays off most staff

#53

Post by sosuke »

watty wrote: post #12
orbitur wrote: post #10

I think it's worth noting that they let staff cover the event yesterday, and then surprised (some of) them with a layoff today. Classy.

I don't see anything unclassy about laying off workers after a big event. I'm assuming there's a decline of work after a big event, so if they're financially hurting a decline would be the correct time to have layoffs.

Yup, same thing happens to QA and Devs after big game releases.

Re: Macworld lays off most staff

#54

Post by TillE »

jerf wrote: post #48
munificent wrote: post #46

Today is a great time to be a writer. There are virtually no middlemen between you putting together a sentence and millions being able to read it. There are countless communities where you can find people to give you good feedback to hone your craft. Unfortunately, that also means it's a really terrible time to be a writer for a living. Like every job that is (a) creative and (b) can be distributed digitally, almost…

If you're trying this seriously, consider Patreon. I support some obscure stuff, and that obscure stuff is currently trending between "lucrative hobby" to "middle-class job pay". You still have to put in the work in the first place, of course, but I think the situation is slowly swinging around to being able to make a living at it again. But... not everybody is going to be able to make a living at it, and that's just…

Patreon is a very interesting development, but I think it's crucial to be a personality and not just someone producing good work. People like supporting...well, people.

But it's exciting to see a writer like Cara Ellison get enough money to live and work on, or a group like RedLetterMedia get an extra $100k/year to make more and better stuff. People had been talking about direct audience support for years, and Patreon has proven that it can work.

Re: Macworld lays off most staff

#55

Post by aikah »

munificent wrote: post #46

Today is a great time to be a writer. There are virtually no middlemen between you putting together a sentence and millions being able to read it. There are countless communities where you can find people to give you good feedback to hone your craft. Unfortunately, that also means it's a really terrible time to be a writer for a living. Like every job that is (a) creative and (b) can be distributed digitally, almost…

> almost all of the money is falling out of it.

Well no money because nobody's paying for it,and since nobody's paying for it the content is usually average at best.

Free information is great,but let's face it,quality news cost money and time. What have we today?in the tech world? content farms (readwrite,thenextweb,techcrunch,mashable...) where writers often know nothing about the subject,or are using social justice warfare to manifacture outrage in order to generate impressions( http://readwrite.com/2014/09/09/apple-no-women-on-stage-dive... ). How can that kind of news scale? readers are not idiots. But most readers ,at the same time,refuse to pay for anything,so the money has to come from somewhere,so we get sponsorised news too...

Real journalists or writers have skills,what's missing is a plateform where pro journalists could monetize their skills to corporations directly,to write serious reports on a specific subject for instance,intelligence,sourcing,or just writing for the web(for commercial purposes,i.e. writing for content for a corporate website).

Re: Macworld lays off most staff

#56

Post by revelation »

larrys wrote: post #19
[deleted] wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

"Or waited a while after?" Perhaps they think that there is a money tree that you just shake to pay employee salaries. I think a comment like the parent (or perhaps that attitude) comes from a failure to realize that in the traditional business world business needs to operate at a profit. There is no runway like the startup runway. Business and life isn't fair and it's not about hurt feelings. And you can't let perso…

People talk of "runway" in the context of a startup exactly because startups are usually at most a year away from running out and making significant capital investments while having no income at all.

I mean, I thought this is clear if you remember that the runway is what airplanes launch from.

We don't mention runway with developed businesses because they are run at timescales of multiple years. If you have to close your business and lay of all people tomorrow but knew nothing about the situation today, we rightly call those running such a business incompetent, and frankly unfit to be in charge of one. We can't tell people to not burn bridges and then excuse employers of the societal and moral obligations they enter into with hiring people.

Re: Macworld lays off most staff

#57

Post by serve_yay »

munificent wrote: post #46

Today is a great time to be a writer. There are virtually no middlemen between you putting together a sentence and millions being able to read it. There are countless communities where you can find people to give you good feedback to hone your craft. Unfortunately, that also means it's a really terrible time to be a writer for a living. Like every job that is (a) creative and (b) can be distributed digitally, almost…

So to recap, terrible time to be a writer.

Re: Macworld lays off most staff

#58

Post by thisisdallas »

munificent wrote: post #46

Today is a great time to be a writer. There are virtually no middlemen between you putting together a sentence and millions being able to read it. There are countless communities where you can find people to give you good feedback to hone your craft. Unfortunately, that also means it's a really terrible time to be a writer for a living. Like every job that is (a) creative and (b) can be distributed digitally, almost…

>Today is a great time to be a writer. There are virtually no middlemen between you putting together a sentence and millions being able to read it.

I'm wondering if any journalist has thought about the idea of a subscription model. For example, charging something like $5 a month to read all articles on their site or releasing long-form articles that cost $1 each.

Re: Macworld lays off most staff

#59

Post by gonzo »

UVB-76 wrote: post #51
untog wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Attending events like the one yesterday has to be one of the best perks of the job Are you serious? Live blogging events like that is utter misery. Constant stress for an entire day.

Absolutely. I would pay good money to be flown out to Cupertino, CA with a press pass to liveblog an Apple keynote, let alone be paid to do it.

Why? And would you do it 1x, or 100x?

Note that you'd do it for free (you would even cover your costs) and the issue expressed is that journalism doesn't pay.

Re: Macworld lays off most staff

#60

Post by orbifold »

aikah wrote: post #55
munificent wrote: post #46

Today is a great time to be a writer. There are virtually no middlemen between you putting together a sentence and millions being able to read it. There are countless communities where you can find people to give you good feedback to hone your craft. Unfortunately, that also means it's a really terrible time to be a writer for a living. Like every job that is (a) creative and (b) can be distributed digitally, almost…

> almost all of the money is falling out of it. Well no money because nobody's paying for it,and since nobody's paying for it the content is usually average at best. Free information is great,but let's face it,quality news cost money and time. What have we today?in the tech world? content farms (readwrite,thenextweb,techcrunch,mashable...) where writers often know nothing about the subject,or are using social justice…

I don't think there is really no one paying for it. At least where I am from you can buy 100+ really obscure magazines at larger railway stations for example. I doubt the magazines will generate large profits, but seem to be self sustaining and at least some of them have content you would not easily find on the web. Even with tablets, it is more pleasant to leaf through a 10 Dollar magazine about design, than the equivalent app. High quality magazines should still have some advantages over online advertising for some brands and they select specific audiences probably as efficient as elaborate online analytics. If you bought a magazine about miniature railroads or gardening, noone needs to store your purchase history to infer what products you might want to buy.
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