We Finally Have Proof That the Internet Is Worse::High-profile lawsuits against Google and Amazon have revealed Silicon Valley’s vise grip on our lives.
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Getting hit by a paywall to read this article, maybe made the point better than the article!
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Do you usually complain when anything else in life is not completely free?
Either it’s paywalls or horrible ads+tracking. I don’t know why people expect to get everything for free, just because it’s on the internet. Especially something that takes time and effort to make.
PSA: you don’t get to complain about “the media” if you’re not even willing to pay for quality outlets
While it’s understandable that in the current economic systems news outlets have to make money somehow and one way is through paywalls, I think it’s also fair for people to value free access to information. Assuming that news outlets and journalists can still make a living, most people would probably agree that it’s better for everybody if the content can be accessed freely, especially since copying it and transmitting it on the internet is super cheap (particularly for text articles). This isn’t some absurd concept. Libraries are respected and valued institutions precisely because they serve a similar role, and we have the tools to do it on an even larger scale. Of course it might not be practical with how things are structured economically right now (and heck, maybe there isn’t even a better way to do it) but I think it’s fair to recognize that there’s a lot of untapped potential for sharing information, and it’d be nice if we could find a way to do it more equitably :).
The issue isn’t data transmission and hosting, it’s paying someone a living wage to do this work professionally, along with their editors, graphic artists, analysts, and everyone else along the way that writes the news. It’s a bit absurd that people complain about ads and low quality reporting/analysis while simultaneously demanding all journalists work for free. Hell, if you get a library card you’ll probably be able to legitimately access the article right now for free in a way that still pays the journalist.
Yes, this is what I’m saying. Distribution is essentially free now (not entirely, but it’s absurdly cheap). As long as you can fund the work it’s only a win if more people can have access to it. Of course this falls apart if people can’t make a living doing good journalism. Does this mean paywalls / ads are the only / best solutions? Maybe! But I think it’s fair to dream of other systems which could allow this to function and allow for broader access. Maybe we use libraries as a crutch, maybe some form of universal basic income could allow people to do this work and provide it for free, maybe there could be grants, or donations, or whatever. Of course people need to be able to make a living off of this work, and there’s obviously going to be issues with every way we could approach this… but that doesn’t mean it’s not a shame when people who want to read it can’t access it (or can’t access it at a price they’re willing to pay).
The thing is that economies of scale do not really work with (good) journalism. You’ll never get a ton of clicks on an in-depth, nuanced and well-researched story, because it’s not really “sexy”. That’s why even serious publications need to put out clickbait content, as it essentially funds the actual serious journalistic work. The problem here is that clickbait articles cause a reputational damage to publications.
A paywall makes it possible to avoid all of this, but then you run into the problem that fewer people have access to your content, rendering what you do less impactful.
As a journalist, let me tell you something: the reality is that news is an awful business. It’s hugely useful for public discourse, but it does not make any money. It’s essentially a public service, like roads or public transportation or schools: they are essential parts of society and they don’t work as a business.
Some countries realized that, and they have public-funded or state-funded media, like the BBC (on NPR, in a different way). While this poses huge problems with regards to conflicts of interest and freedom of the press, that’s the only economic model that actually works.
Yeah, I think publicly funded news is an important model to consider because in many ways it seems like the only good way to do it… but obviously people have concerns about conflicts of interest, which is fair, but you’re going to have them no matter what, so maybe we need a mix of differently funded news sources… or maybe we just need other systems in place that decrease the conflict of interest and make it unlikely for the public funding to be manipulated in order to control the news or whatever. This is one reason that some system of universal basic income seems like an appealing solution to me. If everybody is just guaranteed a livable wage, then it’s not really a source of income that could be altered just to manipulate journalists (ideally anyway). Though, obviously there’s potentially problems with that too, and journalists may have additional expenses which would not be covered, so it could limit what they can actually do.
Publicly funded media is also under constant attack by populist parties (NPR, the BBC, the Italian broadcasting company, the Swiss one, etc). They are being accused of being leftist, irrelevant, too big, or too expensive. Which are all excuses to destroy them and to be able to free up the market for huge private conglomerates that have an agenda
Agreed. I’m friends with a few journalists and even the ones who had a steady job at major outlets were working it like a hustle. There really isn’t a good way to do it that doesn’t involve some level of either corporate or wide-public investment and both of those have an easy chance to get corrupted.
Yep. All major US digital news outlets (with the notable exception of the NYT) are either owned by rich people (WaPo, The Atlantic), publicly funded or in perpetual crisis (Buzzfeed News has closed, Vice has closed, etc).
Are there ads behind the paywalls? Genuine question, we I’ve never paid to find out. If yes, then they can ask fuck right off. You don’t get to have it both ways.
It’s annoying seeing ads in paid products, but having multiple revenue streams is a basic financial strategy that every business employs, so no surprises here
Not surprising, no, but it also ensures that I will never directly financially support that product.
I mean, yes, but they’re minimal. They don’t charge enough for a subscription to fully cover their revenues. Plus serving ads has always been something news outlets have done for revenue.
But hey, if they can just fuck off, I guess we can maintain either ads all over the page or let Sinclair/Newscorp run everything.
Penis
🙄😮💨
Download ublock origin…go to custom filters… paste in filter list…no more paywalls, you don’t pay anything, hooray.
The biggest problem with paying for journalism is that nobody wants to be subscribing to 50 different websites.
If it were easier to pay for multiple news sites at once, I’m sure more people would do it.
That’s my gripe as well. I currently subscribe to 3 or 4 online news outlets, and that’s probably because I work in news. I can’t do more.
Still, there are services like Apple News+ and Pressreader. I wish they would do more, but I guess it’s better than nothing
Or just microcharge articles. I’m willing to pay 50cts for an article. But I dont want to signup for a subscription only to forget about it and pay 30 bucks afterwards.
That’s what I’ve been thinking would be the best way to do that.
Some sort of API that each news outlet implements into their website that bills your account on a per-article basis when you read through it (once you’ve scrolled like 10% of the way down).
As a layman, I would expect the main difficulty would be getting news outlets to be part of it rather than pushing their own subscriptions.
Yeah. Could you do it?
I’d totally love to, but nah. I don’t have the know-how. Seems like an untapped market though.
You don’t seem to understand what the Internet is. Sorry for your lack of vision.
Is it a lack of vision to know that everything has a cost, even on the internet? Do people genuinely think that basic economics don’t apply to digital products?
What it costs for me to connect my phone to my best friend’s server to stream movies is that we both pay our ISP and for electricity. He wants to share and I wanna join. The streets are paid for. Where the fuck does a publisher need to come in?
Websites shouldn’t exist to be in between and charge for it. If you put something out there online and you charge for it, it’s because you think that you being paid at scale matters more than how far your message could reach without the weight is transactions being involved. You cause cost. Value is only value when it’s unburdened.
Money makes it all worse. How does anyone enjoy a videogame full of dollar signs and time limits? How does it matter that we have thousands of things created when you expect the information to bear a cost higher than just the transmission needs?
You want a world of meritocracy where people are propped up for their exclusive access. I want a world where everyone has everything at their disposal so they can shine on their own.
You’re either a bot or a very confused person, because half your sentences do not even make sense. You connecting with your friend over the internet does not have anything to do with people working and putting the result of their work on the internet, like journalists do.
You say that “money makes it all worse” and in an ideal world I could agree with you. But I don’t know if you’ve noticed that in THIS world people need money to live. The internet makes it possible to publish and exchange information at a near-zero cost, but the cost of creating that information remain, be it art, music, photography, videogames, programming, or journalism. That’s where publishers need to come in.
P.s: I think you don’t know what the word “meritocracy” means
Yes, I complain about both.
Next stupid question.
$10 says even you didn’t pay.
You owe me $10
Someone complains about one specific thing not being free. You:
I don’t know why people expect to get **everything **for free
Since you’ve started down the road of what people are and are not allowed to do: you are not allowed to participate in discussions if you can’t avoid making shitty logical fallacies in your very first response.
Are you always an arrogant anus or are you just having a bad day?
Just having a bad day, lol. I did come off a bit too strong, I admit it. Truth is, I am a journalist and it pisses me off that people constantly expect me to work for free.
Hey, it happens to the best of us! Fwiw I don’t think anyone worth listening to would expect you to work for free. Journalism is vital and the people actually producing articles should be paid way more. I’m in the medical field and if journalism operates anything like us I’m sure there’s plenty of cash coming in but it’s all concentrated at the top. The people doing the work get stiffed and you’re held hostage by your desire to positively contribute to society. It sucks. And that’s why I’m an anarchist now lol
Hey, thank you for you empathy. Journalism kinda works like that, except there is not really a lot of money coming in, lol. But money being concentrated at the top is definitely a constant in our field, too.
Working as a journalist has radicalized me too, lol. I do think that journalism, health, public transportation and other public utilities should just be non-for-profit sectors. They do not make sense as businesses and they are just too important to society to leave them to the free market
Anytime! It’s rough out there and public servants of all strokes feel a lot of the heat*, unfortunately. It’s insane how much of the public sector has been privatized. I know journalism is kind of in a grey area as far as that’s concerned but we’ve been ignoring that for far too long. I’d go so far as to say all vital infrastructure or services should be a part of the Commons, left for communities to manage for their residents, with significant legal protections against privatization, nepotism, and profit. These are all things we need to live and be active in our community/state/country and should be treated like the resources they are instead of commodities to be bought and sold
They’re still tracking the crap out of you even if you pay, so they can fuck right off and die in the gutter.
uBlock Origin only shows Chartbeat and Quantcast as trackers on The Atlantic’s website, so I’m gonna say you’re talking out of your ass.
uBlock Origin only shows Chartbeat and Quantcast as trackers on The Atlantic’s website
Strange, it shows way more than that for me
“They” in this case refers to media sites in general not limited to this specific one. And pretty much everone still track user behavior to do profiling on their paid users.
Lick some more boots
Whose boots would I be licking?
Normally I’m all about “yes they should be paid” but in this case it’s particularly ironic - modest ads used to be able to support newspapers. Now they need paywalls.
Title of article: internet is worse
QED.
Oh wow, you thought that you counter 1 and 1 together while completely missing that this is a complex equation.
Ads and ad revenue are not the same as they used to be, and the economics of the world and technology have changed. So until you understand the complexities of the world, please stop talking out of your ass and using shit like “QED” to sound smarter than you are.
I think you missed their point. They pointed out the irony. Which is valid. They didn’t explore viability of monetization.
And then you fall into that kind of toxic tone…
I think the thing that bugs me most is everything is a subscription. Maybe if there was an easy way to do a la carte with reasonable pricing I would be more inclined to pony up for this and that. I’m just sick of attaching a leach to my ass anytime I am curious about something.
This is where something like Monero comes in handy. Since it’s just like cash except in electronic form, you pay one time and there is no potential for them to just come and take money monthly from you. You have to pay manually yourself. It’s a push system instead of a pull system.
“Modest ads” were never a thing: if you were on the internet 10-ish years ago, you’ll remember that pop-up ads were everywhere.
Also, ads were never able to support newspapers, even if they used to be more lucrative. Newspapers were desperate to reach new audiences and they basically started to publish stuff at a loss. That’s why media is in the situation they’re in right now: underfunded and in perpetual search for new ways to monetize so they do not die altogether.
How much does it cost for any random person with a platform to say something?
A journalist is not a “random person”. It’s a profession like any other profession.
A journalist doesn’t just “say something”. A journalist works, like any other worker does.
So, to answer your question, I’d say it costs at least minimum wage.
Well clearly expecting to be paid for doing shit that anyone anywhere does for free is the problem. What’s the point of the journalist?
Wait, what do you think journalists do? Do you think that they wake up, get to their workplace and start typing away about whatever crosses their mind? In that case, I can understand your confusion.
On the other hand, if you know what journalists actually do, I don’t understand what you’re saying. Or perhaps you think that reasearching information on a topic, interviewing people, going to your town hall to see what politicians are up to, go to warzones and report about what’s happening, are tasks that “anyone anywhere does for free”?
Can you imagine what it would be like if the only people doing journalism were those paid by publishers? The real journalists are everyone with a phone who are where the story is happening.
Thats never been true. You bought the paper for a small fee, and it still had ads.
Wow, I think this is the most down-voted thing I’ve agreed with. Should we get a selfie together?
Yes please :,(
Yeah, and a blatantly establishment-biased source like that should have been linked with an archive site.
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