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Seeing as how the public debate has deteriorated, and the results that it has led to, I'm willing to put up with almost anything that can bring civil societies
by matt4077 9y ago
Seeing as how the public debate has deteriorated, and the results that it has led to, I'm willing to put up with almost anything that can bring civil societies back to, well, "civility".
One of the most important pillar of that is varied, but high-quality media. These, however, have been squeezed relentlessly over the last years, with no end in sight. People think reporting isn't worth anything (an almost literal quote in many of these threads), just because they can read the same stories at different outlet–ignoring that somebody still had to be there. Or they're legitimising their use of aggressive ad blockers with the tired the-media-is-so-bad cliché (...then why are you reading it?).
There are two paths that I believe print media can get back on track: First, such an ad blocker that allows reasonable ads, i.e. not moving, obscuring, or for low-quality products.
Second: a netflix-style subscription that gives access to many publications. Because as it is now, I can't justify paying for any single subscription (except for the rather cheap New Yorker). But I'm willing to pay something like $30-$50 dollars/month for the written words I consume. There's just nobody to take the money.
I don't actually have much of a problem with Google. They have always been really excellent in such regards, especially considering how much potential for scandals they have. But I'd prefer more diversity, if at all possible.
I guess this will hurt other adblockers quite badly, and I'm wondering if they didn't create this problem by not creating a product that fairly accounts for publishers' interests.