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I can say that I'm much more receptive to hearing this from someone in the industry (like you) than to hear one industry pointing fingers at another. The news

I can say that I'm much more receptive to hearing this from someone in the industry (like you) than to hear one industry pointing fingers at another. The news industry invented the 24 hour news cycle, and the exploiting people's fear and outrage to keep their attention fixed on all of the worst, link-baity events that happen every day. The article talks about Eighth Graders and how 10 hours a week online makes them less happy; what about people who spend that much time watching the news? I'd wager that a lot of the negative feelings people get from spending too much time online come from reading too much news (and social media reactions to news). This creates an unfounded feeling that the world is falling apart compared to how it was 10 or 20 years ago, when by most objective measures the world is getting better. So I can acknowledge that there are problems, while simultaneously feeling a bit unwilling to be demonized in this way by the New York Times.

chickenfries 9y ago
> I can say that I'm much more receptive to hearing this from someone in the industry (like you) than to hear one industry pointing fingers at another. This is a good way to only hear opinions you like. Maybe try to work on feeling less personally demonized by people talking about an entire industry and it's effects on society? Also, we in tech throw stones at literally every other industry all the time. We're out to disrupt everyone else's industries, remember? We can dish it out but can't take it?
- haberman 9y ago
  This article has the word "evil" in the title. It is explicitly painting the industry as malevolent. To me, disruption is about trying to find better and more efficient ways of doing things. Not disparaging or scapegoating the people already in that industry.
  - falcolas 9y ago
    Tell that to taxi drivers, or hotel managers, or newspapers angry at Google's scraping and re-presentation of their data.
    - haberman 9y ago
      How does the tech industry disparage those people?
      - falcolas 9y ago
        On HN, the disparagement tends to start with "Good, <sector> deserves to be disrupted" and continues with anecdotes and stereotypes.
      - chickenfries 9y ago
        I hear techies disparage the industries they're trying to disrupt all the time. There's a certain "schadenfreude" that some people have for the industries that tech disrupts. I don't have any evidence for you off-hand but this is so incredibly common in my start-up experience that I hope you'll understand that even if you don't think so, lots of people do.
  - chickenfries 9y ago
    > To me, disruption is about trying to find better and more efficient ways of doing things. Not disparaging or scapegoating the people already in that industry. This seems completely disconnected with reality. Disrupting an industry has real effects on peoples lives. I think "evil" is certainly moralizing but I think it's fair given that companies like Google have made things like "do no evil" their unofficial motto. I invite you to stop taking headlines personally and to instead focus on the content of the article rather than the tone.
beaner 9y ago
In a way, social platforms are just ways of collecting user attention and directing it to sources like the NYT or opinions by people who have been influenced by those sources. Perhaps the problem is the NYT itself and publications like it.
- Super_Jambo 9y ago
  The problem is advertising supported media has it's incentives aligned with the advertisers not the viewer. You really can't fix this by trying to build a better advert supported service. For the service to be worth running it has to hurt the consumer. If it doesn't the people paying for it will go bust. The fix is to regulate away advertising supported. It will have to be done gradually or else the disruption will be unbearable. But if the service ain't worth paying for it shouldn't be worth having. Perhaps agents can save us, if every bit of information you get and every transaction you carry out is mediated through your own decision making software then maybe you'll pay for your own journalism and avoid the traps of brand recognition and so on.
  - iliketosleep 9y ago
    If you regulate away advertising supported sites/services, you're discriminating against lower socioeconomic groups. It would be better to just regulate how much information advertisers can collect, which in turn gives them fewer powers of manipulation.
    - wu-ikkyu 9y ago
      >If you regulate away advertising supported sites/services, you're discriminating against lower socioeconomic groups. It seems to be the opposite to me. Such massive influence by advertisers means only those with the most money get heard in the media.
      - dqpb 9y ago
        If people have to pay to use every web app then people without money won't be able to use any web apps. Or do you think it's the opposite?
Moru 9y ago
To be fair, exploiting peoples fear to keep their attention was in no way invented by the news industry. I bet that one is as old as humanity itself. This is how rulers always kept us fighting eachothers.
golemotron 9y ago
> The news industry invented the 24 hour news cycle It was enabled by technology. There was channel scarcity with broadcast. Cable, and all of its enabling technologies, added abundance allowing space for some channels to completely dedicated themselves to news. I said "enabled" but we could even say it was "technologically determined." It's hard to imagine a world with abundant channels where that wouldn't have happened.

chickenfries 9y ago

> I can say that I'm much more receptive to hearing this from someone in the industry (like you) than to hear one industry pointing fingers at another. This is a good way to only hear opinions you like. Maybe try to work on feeling less personally demonized by people talking about an entire industry and it's effects on society? Also, we in tech throw stones at literally every other industry all the time. We're out to disrupt everyone else's industries, remember? We can dish it out but can't take it?

haberman 9y ago
This article has the word "evil" in the title. It is explicitly painting the industry as malevolent. To me, disruption is about trying to find better and more efficient ways of doing things. Not disparaging or scapegoating the people already in that industry.
- falcolas 9y ago
  Tell that to taxi drivers, or hotel managers, or newspapers angry at Google's scraping and re-presentation of their data.
  - haberman 9y ago
    How does the tech industry disparage those people?
    - falcolas 9y ago
      On HN, the disparagement tends to start with "Good, <sector> deserves to be disrupted" and continues with anecdotes and stereotypes.
    - chickenfries 9y ago
      I hear techies disparage the industries they're trying to disrupt all the time. There's a certain "schadenfreude" that some people have for the industries that tech disrupts. I don't have any evidence for you off-hand but this is so incredibly common in my start-up experience that I hope you'll understand that even if you don't think so, lots of people do.
- chickenfries 9y ago
  > To me, disruption is about trying to find better and more efficient ways of doing things. Not disparaging or scapegoating the people already in that industry. This seems completely disconnected with reality. Disrupting an industry has real effects on peoples lives. I think "evil" is certainly moralizing but I think it's fair given that companies like Google have made things like "do no evil" their unofficial motto. I invite you to stop taking headlines personally and to instead focus on the content of the article rather than the tone.

beaner 9y ago

In a way, social platforms are just ways of collecting user attention and directing it to sources like the NYT or opinions by people who have been influenced by those sources. Perhaps the problem is the NYT itself and publications like it.

Super_Jambo 9y ago
The problem is advertising supported media has it's incentives aligned with the advertisers not the viewer. You really can't fix this by trying to build a better advert supported service. For the service to be worth running it has to hurt the consumer. If it doesn't the people paying for it will go bust. The fix is to regulate away advertising supported. It will have to be done gradually or else the disruption will be unbearable. But if the service ain't worth paying for it shouldn't be worth having. Perhaps agents can save us, if every bit of information you get and every transaction you carry out is mediated through your own decision making software then maybe you'll pay for your own journalism and avoid the traps of brand recognition and so on.
- iliketosleep 9y ago
  If you regulate away advertising supported sites/services, you're discriminating against lower socioeconomic groups. It would be better to just regulate how much information advertisers can collect, which in turn gives them fewer powers of manipulation.
  - wu-ikkyu 9y ago
    >If you regulate away advertising supported sites/services, you're discriminating against lower socioeconomic groups. It seems to be the opposite to me. Such massive influence by advertisers means only those with the most money get heard in the media.
    - dqpb 9y ago
      If people have to pay to use every web app then people without money won't be able to use any web apps. Or do you think it's the opposite?

Moru 9y ago

To be fair, exploiting peoples fear to keep their attention was in no way invented by the news industry. I bet that one is as old as humanity itself. This is how rulers always kept us fighting eachothers.

golemotron 9y ago

> The news industry invented the 24 hour news cycle It was enabled by technology. There was channel scarcity with broadcast. Cable, and all of its enabling technologies, added abundance allowing space for some channels to completely dedicated themselves to news. I said "enabled" but we could even say it was "technologically determined." It's hard to imagine a world with abundant channels where that wouldn't have happened.