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Great work. Next up, you can resolve how to save the news media industry in the absence of ad revenue for the publishers.

bobajeff 11y ago
I think we need to seriously rethink how news is done. So I'm not too invested in the news media industry staying alive.
- frandroid 11y ago
  Are you invested in democracy though? Without media, you don't have democracy.
  - bobajeff 11y ago
    I wouldn't count on media preserving democracy. Especially in its current form.
    - CM30 11y ago
      Yeah, the current media is more interested in preserving the status quo and helping out those in power rather than holding them accountable. The complete lack of interest they have in things like government spying and surveillance is a good example of that.
  - Afforess 11y ago
    Enough of the motte-and-bailey tactics. Saying 'No Media' therefore 'No Democracy' is incredibly disingenuous.
    - coldtea 11y ago
      Doesn't make it false though. To have democracy you need to have information that comes with some degree of ethics and accountability. Blogs and random outlets ain't that.
    - frandroid 11y ago
      What else do you have? Rando civilian blogs? The more serious ones are a form of news media, but they need to make a living like the more corporate ones.
  - Moshe_Silnorin 11y ago
    I vote we should replace democracy with a combination of random sampling and standardized testing.
  - JamilD 11y ago
    I think out of all the threats to democracy in this world, Ad Blockers don't seem to be the most pressing.
  - darpa_escapee 11y ago
    The unincumbered spread of ideas is essential for maintaining democracy. The press' current business model isn't necessary however.
  - B1FF_PSUVM 11y ago
    Isn't democracy the rule of advertisers?
sergiosgc 11y ago
Ad revenue is on the order of magnitude of 1USD per one thousand views. I will gladly foot that bill for an ad-free Internet.
- frandroid 11y ago
  You, yes. But we had a paywall at my work (major metropolitan newspaper) for a year and it was a dismal failure. It seems to mostly work for financial/business papers for which many workplaces pay the subscription for. I'm curious to see how the Guardian's sustaining memberships will do.
  - Joof 11y ago
    1) Way too expensive. 2) Not general enough (I'm not paying for 30 different news sites seprately). I don't go to your sites and look for news; HN or reddit link me to them. I think this is the point of micro payments, maybe spend a dollar or two a month on internet in general behind the scenes.
  - halomru 11y ago
    Paywalls seem to mostly not work, but there are more options. There's the supporter model where a small percentage of viewers pays regularly because they like the content (works great for artists and YouTube rs) There's the preview model: you pay extra to get the content sooner. Lots of examples of that everywhere. Another example would be the freemium model, but there it's not obvious to me how to apply it here
CM30 11y ago
I suspect the answer is probably going to be as follows: Original content in the form of features, investigative journalism and opinion pieces might manage to survive with a model like microtransactions or subscriptions. News (as in the generic 'here's what happened today' kind), is probably as good as dead, at least as far as being a product with any value goes. This is doubly true of any niche where any Tom, Dick or Harry could write about current events, like the tech world, gaming, sports or celebrity gossip. Which bodes poorly for the average newspaper, but likely isn't as much of an issue for something like The Economist.
Sir_Substance 11y ago
>Great work. Next up, you can resolve how to save the news media industry in the absence of ad revenue for the publishers. I can't speak for the parent poster, but personally I don't want it saved. I stopped reading professional news years ago. All published for-profit news has an agenda. Even if the journalist doesn't have one, it can be inserted by the editor picking and choosing which stories to run. It's hit rock bottom levels. In most countries, if you ask the locals, they can tell you which news outlets are aligned with which parties, and which newspapers publish for which prominent businesses. For my mileage, I find places like hacker news much better sources of news. This place does a great job of aggregating the kind of high quality content that only pops up when a person /truly cares/ about a subject. You can't get that kind of quality out of someone who works 9-5 making news every day. From my perspective, the traditional news industry gets a big fat shrug. If they can't keep themselves alive, I won't shed a tear.
- Matt3o12_ 11y ago
  Even on hacker news, there are often for profit news sites that are very interesting. If you look outside the tech bubble (or scientific bubble), there will be very few who report on what is going on in the world. And those who do either have extreme views (many of them support the tea party or occupy wallstreat) or have very low writing and research skills Politics are completely different from tech news because in order to write about them, you need to do lots of research. If you want to write why languge A outperforms language B after your extensive benchmarking that took you hours, you only need to summarize it. Your paid job most likely required you to do this kind of research anyways and summarizing it is the smallest part (and not important for your employee). If you write about economics or politics, research is the crucial part and the sole reason for your article (at least most of the time). There are very few people who can afford to do that kind of research for free and donations won't work in the long term. Sure there is a bias and agenda in more traditional news articles, but you can choose which one to read and different news companies have different biases and agendas.
  - a_imho 11y ago
    >Politics are completely different from tech news because in order to write about them, you need to do lots of research. Disagree. I don't think tech news are any quality. Also, we have issues like encryption which can be regarded as a mix, but like FBI vs Apple is more of a politics issue imho, yet reporters can't even get the basic terminology right.
Overtonwindow 11y ago
Respectfully, I disagree. This is not about ad revenue, or saving the news industry. It's about the ALL websites that get ad revenue, completely losing their minds over ads and desperately latching on to anything that pays, no matter the consequences, or how awful it makes the browsing experience. Something has to give, but it's not going to change until someone forces these websites to act more responsibly.

bobajeff 11y ago

I think we need to seriously rethink how news is done. So I'm not too invested in the news media industry staying alive.

frandroid 11y ago
Are you invested in democracy though? Without media, you don't have democracy.
- bobajeff 11y ago
  I wouldn't count on media preserving democracy. Especially in its current form.
  - CM30 11y ago
    Yeah, the current media is more interested in preserving the status quo and helping out those in power rather than holding them accountable. The complete lack of interest they have in things like government spying and surveillance is a good example of that.
- Afforess 11y ago
  Enough of the motte-and-bailey tactics. Saying 'No Media' therefore 'No Democracy' is incredibly disingenuous.
  - coldtea 11y ago
    Doesn't make it false though. To have democracy you need to have information that comes with some degree of ethics and accountability. Blogs and random outlets ain't that.
  - frandroid 11y ago
    What else do you have? Rando civilian blogs? The more serious ones are a form of news media, but they need to make a living like the more corporate ones.
- Moshe_Silnorin 11y ago
  I vote we should replace democracy with a combination of random sampling and standardized testing.
- JamilD 11y ago
  I think out of all the threats to democracy in this world, Ad Blockers don't seem to be the most pressing.
- darpa_escapee 11y ago
  The unincumbered spread of ideas is essential for maintaining democracy. The press' current business model isn't necessary however.
- B1FF_PSUVM 11y ago
  Isn't democracy the rule of advertisers?

sergiosgc 11y ago

Ad revenue is on the order of magnitude of 1USD per one thousand views. I will gladly foot that bill for an ad-free Internet.

frandroid 11y ago
You, yes. But we had a paywall at my work (major metropolitan newspaper) for a year and it was a dismal failure. It seems to mostly work for financial/business papers for which many workplaces pay the subscription for. I'm curious to see how the Guardian's sustaining memberships will do.
- Joof 11y ago
  1) Way too expensive. 2) Not general enough (I'm not paying for 30 different news sites seprately). I don't go to your sites and look for news; HN or reddit link me to them. I think this is the point of micro payments, maybe spend a dollar or two a month on internet in general behind the scenes.
- halomru 11y ago
  Paywalls seem to mostly not work, but there are more options. There's the supporter model where a small percentage of viewers pays regularly because they like the content (works great for artists and YouTube rs) There's the preview model: you pay extra to get the content sooner. Lots of examples of that everywhere. Another example would be the freemium model, but there it's not obvious to me how to apply it here

CM30 11y ago

I suspect the answer is probably going to be as follows: Original content in the form of features, investigative journalism and opinion pieces might manage to survive with a model like microtransactions or subscriptions. News (as in the generic 'here's what happened today' kind), is probably as good as dead, at least as far as being a product with any value goes. This is doubly true of any niche where any Tom, Dick or Harry could write about current events, like the tech world, gaming, sports or celebrity gossip. Which bodes poorly for the average newspaper, but likely isn't as much of an issue for something like The Economist.

Sir_Substance 11y ago

>Great work. Next up, you can resolve how to save the news media industry in the absence of ad revenue for the publishers. I can't speak for the parent poster, but personally I don't want it saved. I stopped reading professional news years ago. All published for-profit news has an agenda. Even if the journalist doesn't have one, it can be inserted by the editor picking and choosing which stories to run. It's hit rock bottom levels. In most countries, if you ask the locals, they can tell you which news outlets are aligned with which parties, and which newspapers publish for which prominent businesses. For my mileage, I find places like hacker news much better sources of news. This place does a great job of aggregating the kind of high quality content that only pops up when a person /truly cares/ about a subject. You can't get that kind of quality out of someone who works 9-5 making news every day. From my perspective, the traditional news industry gets a big fat shrug. If they can't keep themselves alive, I won't shed a tear.

Matt3o12_ 11y ago
Even on hacker news, there are often for profit news sites that are very interesting. If you look outside the tech bubble (or scientific bubble), there will be very few who report on what is going on in the world. And those who do either have extreme views (many of them support the tea party or occupy wallstreat) or have very low writing and research skills Politics are completely different from tech news because in order to write about them, you need to do lots of research. If you want to write why languge A outperforms language B after your extensive benchmarking that took you hours, you only need to summarize it. Your paid job most likely required you to do this kind of research anyways and summarizing it is the smallest part (and not important for your employee). If you write about economics or politics, research is the crucial part and the sole reason for your article (at least most of the time). There are very few people who can afford to do that kind of research for free and donations won't work in the long term. Sure there is a bias and agenda in more traditional news articles, but you can choose which one to read and different news companies have different biases and agendas.
- a_imho 11y ago
  >Politics are completely different from tech news because in order to write about them, you need to do lots of research. Disagree. I don't think tech news are any quality. Also, we have issues like encryption which can be regarded as a mix, but like FBI vs Apple is more of a politics issue imho, yet reporters can't even get the basic terminology right.

Overtonwindow 11y ago

Respectfully, I disagree. This is not about ad revenue, or saving the news industry. It's about the ALL websites that get ad revenue, completely losing their minds over ads and desperately latching on to anything that pays, no matter the consequences, or how awful it makes the browsing experience. Something has to give, but it's not going to change until someone forces these websites to act more responsibly.