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Vice website is shutting down

writing.exchange

251–260 of 477 posts

Re: Vice website is shutting down

#251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember when Gavin McInness was still making content for them. Their strength was always to have stories and bits that no where else would. Not sure how much they strayed from that in the last 5-10 years but they almost never showed up on my radar anymore

Gavin McInness? Founder of the Proud Boys, Gavin McInness?

Yes, he left Vice over "creative differences" a couple of years before he founded Proud Boys. He wasn't as openly fascist while at Vice, though Vice definitely had to do some damage control over his comments.

Re: Vice website is shutting down

#252
post #221

It makes no sense to not let the site online in an archived form, for the posterity It wouldn't even be a significant cost and ads would recoup it anyway There should be a way to donate a website to the Internet Archive so that they run an online archive on it, basically keeping the site frozen forever (rather than relying on the Wayback Machine which has worse UX)

Web archiving is a solved problem, you record the website in an interactive environment [1], and everything what happens on-screen will be saved in a single file in an open [2] and standardized [3] file format authored by Internet Archive and endorsed by Library of Congress for preservation [4]. You can store the resulting WARC file wherever, be it on S3 or under your pillow. As an archivist, I urge everybody here to…

The technical side is a solved problem, the legal side not so much.

You practically cannot preserve and make available something if the copyright holders don't want you to. If the copyright situation is complicated you bear the risk.

You can say, that this is how it is supposed to be, but it is not like it works in the non-digital realm. You could argue that we'd need something like digital monument protection, where artifacts can be preserved against the copyright holders will.

Re: Vice website is shutting down

#254

It makes no sense to not let the site online in an archived form, for the posterity It wouldn't even be a significant cost and ads would recoup it anyway There should be a way to donate a website to the Internet Archive so that they run an online archive on it, basically keeping the site frozen forever (rather than relying on the Wayback Machine which has worse UX)

If it makes no sense, there's someone mean behind it. The deal to work with the media outlets likely dictates they cannot have their own distribution channel even for historical content.

"If it makes no sense, there's someone mean behind it."

No idea about this case specifically, but in general this is an assumption that only hurts you in most cases. People have motives and people want to be good. If their "good" is your good is a different question - a question that is often worth figuring out.

Re: Vice website is shutting down

#255
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At some point they stopped being fun and challenging and just became weird and angry. As much as I hate to say it (millenial), it's probably due to the age of millenials and genx now. They should have pivoted a different way--more in line with the changing life stage of the readership.

are you implying they swapped to catering to gen Z? why didn't that continue to work, when it did will millennials at that age

My sense is fewer Zoomers are interested in the grimy/underworld/rave vibe compared to Millennials and Gen X. It’s all the same to them.

My theory is that when Millennials were growing up there was still a strong ‘default culture’ that helped sustain a thriving counter-culture. One could move decisively between the two when bored/frazzled. Zoomers have grown up flailing around in a devolved soup of ideas. Everything’s edgy so nothing is.

Re: Vice website is shutting down

#256
post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "I did a giant curl job, recursively regex'd out the login/comment submission fields and dumped them on s3" That is not zero effort. That is at least 1.2 efforts.

1.2 efforts which grants you residual revenue for life. Doing it is a no brainer, but some people lack one.

Revenue for life also means that you're filing taxes and potentially other paperwork about it for life.

Re: Vice website is shutting down

#257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he's principled enough to keep creative direction on it. And just like with All Gas No Brakes, if someone else takes ownership and he disagrees with their vision for the content, he'll just move to a different channel or platform. His fans are devoted enough that they'd follow him.

It seems noteworthy to point out there are multiple, credible sexual assault allegations against this man: https://www.npr.org/2023/01/20/1149748975

I don't really think that's relevant to the journalism he's doing. If he didn't do it, hopefully the courts will determine his innocence. If he did do it, hopefully the courts will punish him appropriately. But either way the work is good and it's worth one's time to watch it.

Re: Vice website is shutting down

#258
post #46

It makes no sense to not let the site online in an archived form, for the posterity It wouldn't even be a significant cost and ads would recoup it anyway There should be a way to donate a website to the Internet Archive so that they run an online archive on it, basically keeping the site frozen forever (rather than relying on the Wayback Machine which has worse UX)

I gave up a domain I used to own in the last year or so. It was a mildly popular site that had been around for about a decade. Within a few months someone else had snapped it up, created a site, used the same content (I assume from the Internet archive), and was using it to link farm. At least that's what I thought when I saw the new site with a few links that were not there before. I only discovered it because they…

If it's the exact same content, and you own the copyright to it, that sounds like copyright infringement. IANAL but there could be some money there.

Re: Vice website is shutting down

#259

Its sad that Vice feels like they can only gain value from social media and YouTube. I feel like the best part of the internet is dying (good written detailed content), but the worst part of it is surviving and thriving: social media (short lived, low quality, clickbaity, dopamine chasing content).

Some day, perhaps soon, YouTube may charge for serving content. A lot of folks will fork it over, and a lot more folks will scramble.
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