Google unlocks 33% of publisher paywalls on July 30 • Hacker News Board

Re: Google unlocks 33% of publisher paywalls on July 30

#101

Post by WalterSear » Tue, Jul 30, 2019, 3:57 PM UTC

FabHK wrote: post #33

> Without fail, the websites detected the intrusion attempt and prevented access to the content Using incognito mode in the browser to make it a bit harder to be tracked (without even blocking ads!) is "an intrusion attempt"? Excuse me? That's absurd language.

It's the language of someone married to a business model. The publishers can't exist without search engine indexing and user tracking, but can't make money without paywalling.

We have the technology to subsidize media creation appropriately, in the manner of performance royalties organizations. However, since there's no equivalent of radio station middlemen, it's not a problem that can be solved by an unregulated market.

Re: Google unlocks 33% of publisher paywalls on July 30

#102

Post by brandmeyer » Tue, Jul 30, 2019, 4:05 PM UTC

dymk wrote: post #39

hedora wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point, publishers should probably just accept that any tracking is unacceptable, so if they want people to pay (and therefore login), then they need to stop funneling data to ad networks and other PII aggregators.

Who says it’s unacceptable? The incredibly tiny minority of readers coming from HN?

I used to think this was a tiny minority, too. But a key takeway from https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/07/adblocking-how-about-n... was this statistic: "26% of Internet users are now blocking ads." Its a minority, but its not tiny.

Re: Google unlocks 33% of publisher paywalls on July 30

#103

Post by eli » Tue, Jul 30, 2019, 4:09 PM UTC

drivingmenuts wrote: post #80

eli wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a publisher, there's absolutely no way I'm letting Google, Apple or Facebook manage the identity or control the authentication of my readers.

Why not? Saves you the trouble of building and maintaining a secure access system. You likely gain more users because of network effects, which doesn’t cut your advertising budget so much as supplements it. If your trying to preserve user privacy, there’s a good chance you’re too late there - they most likely already gave that up a long time ago.

My relationship with my readers is our most valuable asset, and I don't want it mediated by companies who compete with me for ad dollars. It's the same reason I publish content on our own domain and not Medium or Facebook or LinkedIn.

Re: Google unlocks 33% of publisher paywalls on July 30

#104

Post by eappleby » Tue, Jul 30, 2019, 4:11 PM UTC

Is this update preventing publishers from identifying if a reader is accessing its site using Incognito mode, or is it preventing publishers from identifying who the reader is and whether they've reached their article limit? If the former, why is knowing whether an unidentifiable reader is accessing a website via Incognito mode a privacy issue? If the latter, why wouldn't publishers just block all access to their site that is reached via Incognito mode?

Re: Google unlocks 33% of publisher paywalls on July 30

#105

Post by samirm » Tue, Jul 30, 2019, 4:13 PM UTC

UncleMeat wrote: post #85

samirm wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

youtube/patreon

Not scalable. This is like saying medical bills are under control because of GoFundMe. Some people can support themselves with patreon but the number is limited and it requires tons of work for zero pay while you build a follower base large enough. "Work for free for two years and maybe you will have a semi sustainable income" sucks. Crowdfunding also encourages extreme opinions and bubbles over neutral reporting.

Why does news have to be scalable? I don't understand your comparison to medical bills or gofundme either.

>Some people can support themselves with patreon but the number is limited

isn't that true for all industries?

>Crowdfunding also encourages extreme opinions and bubbles over neutral reporting.

lol wat. you got a source for that?

Re: Google unlocks 33% of publisher paywalls on July 30

#106

Post by DoreenMichele » Tue, Jul 30, 2019, 4:14 PM UTC

I hate paywalls. I rail a lot about my inability to adequately monetize my writing, but I want to put that information out there "free to the public."

Ideals: They don't seem to keep me fed.

But I'm not going to ever paywall my writing anyway.

Re: Google unlocks 33% of publisher paywalls on July 30

#107

Post by dymk » Tue, Jul 30, 2019, 4:15 PM UTC

brandmeyer wrote: post #102

dymk wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who says it’s unacceptable? The incredibly tiny minority of readers coming from HN?

I used to think this was a tiny minority, too. But a key takeway from https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/07/adblocking-how-about-n... was this statistic: "26% of Internet users are now blocking ads." Its a minority, but its not tiny.

Very, very probably only to declutter their screen. Does the survey collect intent about why they install it?

I doubt anywhere near 26% block ads because of tracking. I doubt even 1% if users even understand what tracking means.

Re: Google unlocks 33% of publisher paywalls on July 30

#108

Post by echelon » Tue, Jul 30, 2019, 4:23 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #92

echelon wrote: post #76

Could a startup go the Spotify/streaming music route and aggregate all of the popular news stories? I imagine bootstrapping content from NYT, WaPo, and all of the other popular news orgs, stuffing them into a common and unobtrusive web interface, and then providing them all for free to visitors. The startup could then try implementing micro transactions or minimal ads and do a revenue share with the original publishe…

Spotify worked a compulsory license provision of copyright law that applies specifically and only to music streaming. (Originally intended for radio.) A middle man controlling the subscriber-ship would not necessarily be better for papers. The middle man entity would have enormous bargaining leverage, like Apple does with the App Store.

> The middle man entity would have enormous bargaining leverage, like Apple does with the App Store.

That's a great point and speaks to a true danger with this model.

I imagine content publishers could distribute their content across multiple distributors if they existed, though I imagine the market would only support a handful of competitors.

> Spotify worked a compulsory license provision of copyright law that applies specifically and only to music streaming. (Originally intended for radio.)

Could you speak more to this point? I'm incredibly interested. How was this provision created, and did they start their business with a law team? How were they able to get this accepted? What about other, earlier entrants in this space? Grooveshark obviously failed (they walked a slightly shadier path), but had they tried to get on proper legal footing they might have made it.

Could a news aggregator start out as a Grooveshark, then pivot into a Spotify without getting sued into oblivion?

Re: Google unlocks 33% of publisher paywalls on July 30

#109

Post by mic47 » Tue, Jul 30, 2019, 4:26 PM UTC

mschuster91 wrote: post #48

News publishers should get their asses together in one building and build a "netflix for news". No I don't want to register or put my CC info at your US 10k town TV station with a single overworked dude managing IT just to follow a reddit link, but link yourself with a central ID provider that manages payment and does not disclose my personal data, and I'd be in for it.

We had this in Slovakia (https://piano.io/ ), but it was not very successful, and all media companies now have their own systems. But they seems to expand to other markets.

I think that their main problem was that at the same time, the subscription was low (so didn't bring much revenue) and at the same time people hated it because now they had to pay for something that was free before. So I guess once we get used to pay for journalism, then something like netflix for media might work.

Re: Google unlocks 33% of publisher paywalls on July 30

#110

Post by kyledrake » Tue, Jul 30, 2019, 4:38 PM UTC

52-6F-62 wrote: post #96

kyledrake wrote: post #34

But how will we pay the NYT to try to drag the US into wars while David Brooks lectures debt-loaded millennials about work ethic and family values unless we let them continue to exploit a bug in web browsers? Monopolist news orgs are losing readership/revenue because they're terrible and refuse to change, not because of Chrome. Meanwhile other, better forms of journalism are thriving.

It appears your statement is a touch inaccurate: https://www.statista.com/chart/3755/digital-subscribers-of-t... I also have a hard time understanding why it should be free. If you don't want to pay for it, you don't have to pay for it. You also aren't entitled to their for free no more than the writers at the New York Times are entitled to your work for free.

As that article points out, that is far more related to Trump being elected (something they played a major role in by helping squash a progressive reform candidate in favor of an institutionalist neoliberal) than to their browser paywall strategy. It says far more about how online media is rewarded for making things worse, a scary lesson I hope not too many people learn.

I don't get news from the NYT and am quite happy continuing to do that regardless of their monetary strategy (and by the way, Google is extremely profitable with free + ads).