> they could have bought Instagram, What's App, SnapChat (if you don't think these are news networks then you've not been paying attention). They aren't news n

> they could have bought Instagram, What's App, SnapChat (if you don't think these are news networks then you've not been paying attention). They aren't news networks. They are social networks that carry news. That's the main problem news organisations face - news is no longer an individual destination for users, it's something they pick up with other content. Any news organisation that bought Instagram would never have been able to execute on it, because its strength was always in social connections, not in delivering news. People rightly criticise news companies for their "outdated business models", but I'm yet to see anyone propose a modern business model that would actually work. When the bulk of traffic comes from Google and Facebook (I don't realistically see how anyone could have stopped this from happening) you're stuck chasing clicks no matter what. Subscriptions help you earn money, but they drastically cut back your reach. I don't have any particularly good answers myself, but I really, really don't like the world we live in today where clickability is the primary metric of success - it leads to overhyped outrage and outright fiction being posted to people's walls every day. And FB and Google sit on top of it all earning more and more money. They have no incentive to change anything. A successful and free press is in every citizen's interest, but today's business environment makes it all but impossible to succeed.