Author here. Engaging since it seems like we are passionate about the topic and you have thought about it.
I don't claim to be a media expert or business expert, so all I can do is call out something troubling with a CTA. If you'd like to chat more, email me. "_ @ goel.io"
You named a few business models (patronage, billionaire-good-heart, government grants, ads, subscriptions etc) - all those are valid and if effect. Not a single is perfect. I wish journalism suits were fast to realize the potential of the Internet and to adapt. They screwed up. Doesn't mean we should let the institution die (considering there's no replacement for it).
I think most publications have a mixed revenue stream anyway - private grants, reader donations, monthly memberships, events etc.
> Local papers? If Jeff Bezos took 50% of his growth in net worth this year, he could permanently endow every single local newspaper in the entire country in perpetuity. Does it really matter what I do?
Personally, I think this should happen through taxation. But that's another can of worms that would de-rail this conversation.
Side note: Have you read Winners Take All by Anand Giridharadas? If not, I implore you to. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/feb/14/winners-take-a...
> we know the author can afford is buying, say, 100 subscriptions of a worthy paper and donating them.
I personally have dozens of subscriptions and do donate xx% of my income every year to causes including journalism (through newsmatch and direct). If you'd like the list, email me. If you have ideas for effective matching/giving, ping me. I'd be all ears.
> In fact, the author surely knows dozens of other SSEs at Google who also feel the same way politically about this issue. Why not solicit them?
Yeah the sad thing about my experience with tech coworkers is that there is too much entitlement (read the comments in this thread). "I will only pay if it's on my terms". "I will only pay if I can pay 5 cents." Those are meaningless excuses that miss the big picture - that news is a business that everyone needs. So no, not many feel the way I do. My hope is that posts like these make a few people pay for their news.
> antitrust
Yeah good luck.
> chasing YouTube and Facebook money
> ads
If people don't pay, then they will have to look for money elsewhere.
> But I didn't ask publication to pivot to be ad-first, a variety of structural incentives did that.
They didn't pivot. They were always ad-first. Print revenue was 10%, and the other 90% was ads. The suits in news thought that that would work online. They were wrong.
> all the UX problems
Sure. Those are good things to take with the places you like to read. I'd reported issues to crosscut that they have fixed.
> It might well be the case that making a product that's more convenient and less infuriating will solicit more individual compliance
"Journalism" or "news" is not a product. "nytimes.com" is. Apple News app is.
I do wish more places were tech-forward - but to get there, they have to have consistent revenue and trust of the public.
Your complaints are valid (and not novel). None of them mean that news as an institution doesn't deserve your money considering the risks they take and the value they provide. Yeah the paper isn't glossy, or it's too glossy, or it smells like Axe, or the website doesn't let you put widgets -- those are fixable. What isn't is the one-way path we are headed in that leads to no accountability for the powerful.
I don't want us as a society to look back in 10 years and think "well we could have saved news and democracy but they just didn't put enough Javascript on their website".
> Bret Stephens
fuck him.
> I know this is a pretty far-reaching comment, but I think if we're going to have the conversation, let's have it.
Happy to. Email me.