4 ms·

It is a race to the bottom as long as we value speed over quality. It is a shame too because I think consumers would really prefer quality over speed for softwa

It is a race to the bottom as long as we value speed over quality. It is a shame too because I think consumers would really prefer quality over speed for software and news, I know I would. But consumption of these things isn't a rational deliberation by the consumer, but a reflex click or don't click. Hence the proliferation of click bait headlines and bs startup promises. I think the key is reputation and branding. When all news sources are crappy, I will stick to whatever is free and at the top of my feed. Maybe this is why pay walls are a failing strategy, none of the pay walled papers have a good enough reputation for quality to justify the expense in both money and convenience. For example Apple used to have such a reputation for quality that the apple tax was something people gladly paid. They still do, but around 2007 this was even more obvious. Remember cut and paste on the iPhone, Apple's reputation for quality was such that millions of customers happily waited for basic functionality. Any other company would have had to rush out cut and paste, but Apple could take their time and get it right. I don't think there is anything similar in journalism. No one says to themselves "That looks like a good story, but I'll just wait a few days and read about it in the New York Times." We can blame the consumer's impatience, but I think we should blame journalists for not cultivating such a reputation for quality. It would be really hard and probably lose money for years, but I want to see a paper try that approach. Have an explicit and well know strategy of ,"we aren't going to be first with any stories, but everything you read here is well researched almost certainly true". It would take some time but just imagine what a paper with that kind of reputation could accomplish and the sort of loyalty it could have from customers.

Tempest1981 10y ago
Agreed. Savvy consumers prefer quality, but many just prefer entertainment. And entertainment drives clicks/views, bringing more revenue. Is capitalism supposed to provide some sort of self-correction?
crdoconnor 10y ago
>It is a race to the bottom as long as we value speed over quality. It is a shame too because I think consumers would really prefer quality over speed for software and news They do but quality is expensive to produce and consumers can't always recognize it consistently.
- 6502nerdface 10y ago
  Yeah, one of the problems here is that speed is easier to measure than quality, and there's a natural bias to optimize for what you can measure.
Broken_Hippo 10y ago
I agree that none of the pay walled papers are good enough to justify the expense. But this was happening pre-internet as well. I used to buy newspapers occasionally when dining out alone. At best, they were somewhat cumbersome to read and provided possibly half a meal's worth of reading mildly interesting stories (to put it mildly. Newspaper subscriptions were never worth it - and this feeling hasn't changed since they went online. The future of journalism worries me a bit since the current model seems to be failing. Folks need consistently reputable sources to get news about events without a monetary barrier to read it. Otherwise, we wind up with folks believing the "truth" in what seems no better than a supermarket tabloid.
greatingale 10y ago
> No one says to themselves "That looks like a good story, but I'll just wait a few days and read about it in the New York Times." I absolutely do. NYT isn't perfect, but all my other feeds are so full of junk I do wait to see what the NYT will write about it. You don't even have to wait a few days. The NYT is very good at covering developing stories online with reasonable accuracy.
Symmetry 10y ago
It would be really hard and probably lose money for years, but I want to see a paper try that approach. Have an explicit and well know strategy of ,"we aren't going to be first with any stories, but everything you read here is well researched almost certainly true". It would take some time but just imagine what a paper with that kind of reputation could accomplish and the sort of loyalty it could have from customers. You're basically describing The Economist here. Go find their coverage of some topic you know well. It might be shallow, it might emphasize the wrong things, but it will very seldom be out and out wrong. I'm not aware of any non-specialist publication I can say that for. And instead of just "Principle A said 'aaa', principle B said 'bbb'" coverage of foreign events they also provide a bit of historical context of who these people are and what they've been doing. Along with some editorial about who they think is write which I don't always agree with but which is usually understandable at least.

Tempest1981 10y ago

Agreed. Savvy consumers prefer quality, but many just prefer entertainment. And entertainment drives clicks/views, bringing more revenue. Is capitalism supposed to provide some sort of self-correction?

crdoconnor 10y ago

>It is a race to the bottom as long as we value speed over quality. It is a shame too because I think consumers would really prefer quality over speed for software and news They do but quality is expensive to produce and consumers can't always recognize it consistently.

6502nerdface 10y ago
Yeah, one of the problems here is that speed is easier to measure than quality, and there's a natural bias to optimize for what you can measure.

Broken_Hippo 10y ago

I agree that none of the pay walled papers are good enough to justify the expense. But this was happening pre-internet as well. I used to buy newspapers occasionally when dining out alone. At best, they were somewhat cumbersome to read and provided possibly half a meal's worth of reading mildly interesting stories (to put it mildly. Newspaper subscriptions were never worth it - and this feeling hasn't changed since they went online. The future of journalism worries me a bit since the current model seems to be failing. Folks need consistently reputable sources to get news about events without a monetary barrier to read it. Otherwise, we wind up with folks believing the "truth" in what seems no better than a supermarket tabloid.

greatingale 10y ago

> No one says to themselves "That looks like a good story, but I'll just wait a few days and read about it in the New York Times." I absolutely do. NYT isn't perfect, but all my other feeds are so full of junk I do wait to see what the NYT will write about it. You don't even have to wait a few days. The NYT is very good at covering developing stories online with reasonable accuracy.

Symmetry 10y ago

It would be really hard and probably lose money for years, but I want to see a paper try that approach. Have an explicit and well know strategy of ,"we aren't going to be first with any stories, but everything you read here is well researched almost certainly true". It would take some time but just imagine what a paper with that kind of reputation could accomplish and the sort of loyalty it could have from customers. You're basically describing The Economist here. Go find their coverage of some topic you know well. It might be shallow, it might emphasize the wrong things, but it will very seldom be out and out wrong. I'm not aware of any non-specialist publication I can say that for. And instead of just "Principle A said 'aaa', principle B said 'bbb'" coverage of foreign events they also provide a bit of historical context of who these people are and what they've been doing. Along with some editorial about who they think is write which I don't always agree with but which is usually understandable at least.