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How do you plan on balancing this overly strict definition of value with a sustainable model of funding (critically necessary) investigative journalism? All thi

How do you plan on balancing this overly strict definition of value with a sustainable model of funding (critically necessary) investigative journalism? All this helps is the proliferation of ideology-reinforcing propaganda and clickbait. Are we going to shut out real, substantial content from the online space? The commoditization of search can't come soon enough. Google shouldn't be able to monopolize this space.

rfrank 9y ago
That's WSJ's job to figure out, not search providers. From google's perspective, a search which leads users to a page that doesn't load, which the user immediately abandons, is a bad result. WSJ isn't entitle to traffic because they're an old organization.
- omegaworks 9y ago
  It's not about "entitlement" it's about the structural incentives put in place by the online media playing field. To go out in the streets and talk to people, dig deep into obfuscated government archives, and actually make sense of the world takes real work. It's often work that results in content that isn't always just what their readers want to see.
  - rfrank 9y ago
    None of that influences the way Google's spiders see their site, bad results are bad results. WSJ could leave their content freely available and sell banner ads, vs. locking themselves into the subscription model they're familiar with. It's not Google's fault WSJ doesn't want to change.
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      Or they could seek patronage without a paywall, like the Guardian. If they want subscriber exclusivity, they shouldn't be surprised that search engines serving people that are mostly not WSJ subscribers rank their content based on what is visible to non-subscribers.
  - CamperBob2 9y ago
    It's entitled to traffic because it puts in work. That's not how it works. That's not how anything in life works.
rdiddly 9y ago
So the implication then, is that real & substantial content comes from those who get paid, and ideology-reinforcing propaganda and clickbait come from those who don't? Are you sure it's true? Are you sure it's not the opposite? Could either or both be true?
- omegaworks 9y ago
  Substantial content takes more work to produce then clickbait. We must critically examine the structural incentives we put in place that support shallow outrage porn over deep, well-sourced, investigative journalism.
lordCarbonFiber 9y ago
The problem is that is false. Ads (and the click bait they encourage) certainly is a monetization strategy; but to suggest it's either free rubish or paywalled quality is patently false. Ignoring completely state sponsored media (NPR, BBC, etc), groups like News Deeply [0] offer proof by contradiction to your assumption. Killing search isn't going to add more "real", "substantial" content online. [0] https://www.newsdeeply.com/ https://www.newsdeeply.com/
- omegaworks 9y ago
  Please don't frame your response as a logical argument while ignoring the ambiguity introduced by your use of "that" to refer to my entire statement. Without good search, there's a discovery problem. How will people find quality content easily? Where'd you get "killing search?" Search clearly provides value.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  NPR isn't anywhere close to "completely state sponsored media"; NPR gets basically no direct government funding, what it does get is indirect through its member stations, who get less from government than from corporate sponsors, and less from sponsors than listener donations.
roguecoder 9y ago
If the monetization strategy is, as WSJ, to make their content inaccessible, it is them shutting themselves out of online spaces, not Google. Walled gardens break the web.
dragonwriter 9y ago
> How do you plan on balancing this overly strict definition of value with a sustainable model of funding (critically necessary) investigative journalism? Allow people interested in paying for content to pay for content, and then use the discovery mechanisms the content owner makes availlable for that content. If the content owner wants to promote content that isn't available to the general public via search engines, they can buy search ads like anyone else. They don't need a subsidy at Google's (and, in terms of time, Google users') expense by way of organic search results for content that most search users will not be able to access when they click the result. > The commoditization of search can't come soon enough. Google shouldn't be able to monopolize this space. Commoditization of search (which means heavy competition focussed on minimizing costs) isn't going to make it any more likely that competing public search providers are going to subsidize paywalled content that their users can't use.

rfrank 9y ago

That's WSJ's job to figure out, not search providers. From google's perspective, a search which leads users to a page that doesn't load, which the user immediately abandons, is a bad result. WSJ isn't entitle to traffic because they're an old organization.

omegaworks 9y ago
It's not about "entitlement" it's about the structural incentives put in place by the online media playing field. To go out in the streets and talk to people, dig deep into obfuscated government archives, and actually make sense of the world takes real work. It's often work that results in content that isn't always just what their readers want to see.
- rfrank 9y ago
  None of that influences the way Google's spiders see their site, bad results are bad results. WSJ could leave their content freely available and sell banner ads, vs. locking themselves into the subscription model they're familiar with. It's not Google's fault WSJ doesn't want to change.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    Or they could seek patronage without a paywall, like the Guardian. If they want subscriber exclusivity, they shouldn't be surprised that search engines serving people that are mostly not WSJ subscribers rank their content based on what is visible to non-subscribers.
- CamperBob2 9y ago
  It's entitled to traffic because it puts in work. That's not how it works. That's not how anything in life works.

rdiddly 9y ago

So the implication then, is that real & substantial content comes from those who get paid, and ideology-reinforcing propaganda and clickbait come from those who don't? Are you sure it's true? Are you sure it's not the opposite? Could either or both be true?

omegaworks 9y ago
Substantial content takes more work to produce then clickbait. We must critically examine the structural incentives we put in place that support shallow outrage porn over deep, well-sourced, investigative journalism.

lordCarbonFiber 9y ago

The problem is that is false. Ads (and the click bait they encourage) certainly is a monetization strategy; but to suggest it's either free rubish or paywalled quality is patently false. Ignoring completely state sponsored media (NPR, BBC, etc), groups like News Deeply [0] offer proof by contradiction to your assumption. Killing search isn't going to add more "real", "substantial" content online. [0] https://www.newsdeeply.com/ https://www.newsdeeply.com/

omegaworks 9y ago
Please don't frame your response as a logical argument while ignoring the ambiguity introduced by your use of "that" to refer to my entire statement. Without good search, there's a discovery problem. How will people find quality content easily? Where'd you get "killing search?" Search clearly provides value.
dragonwriter 9y ago
NPR isn't anywhere close to "completely state sponsored media"; NPR gets basically no direct government funding, what it does get is indirect through its member stations, who get less from government than from corporate sponsors, and less from sponsors than listener donations.

roguecoder 9y ago

If the monetization strategy is, as WSJ, to make their content inaccessible, it is them shutting themselves out of online spaces, not Google. Walled gardens break the web.

dragonwriter 9y ago

> How do you plan on balancing this overly strict definition of value with a sustainable model of funding (critically necessary) investigative journalism? Allow people interested in paying for content to pay for content, and then use the discovery mechanisms the content owner makes availlable for that content. If the content owner wants to promote content that isn't available to the general public via search engines, they can buy search ads like anyone else. They don't need a subsidy at Google's (and, in terms of time, Google users') expense by way of organic search results for content that most search users will not be able to access when they click the result. > The commoditization of search can't come soon enough. Google shouldn't be able to monopolize this space. Commoditization of search (which means heavy competition focussed on minimizing costs) isn't going to make it any more likely that competing public search providers are going to subsidize paywalled content that their users can't use.