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I'm not sure that's an entirely fair comparison to make for a couple reasons: A) nobody pays to read the news anymore, and B) Facebook controls its ad network.

I'm not sure that's an entirely fair comparison to make for a couple reasons: A) nobody pays to read the news anymore, and B) Facebook controls its ad network. If WaPo or any other news publication decided to turn off ads out of moral obligation to prove a point, they'd be digging their own graves. You're essentially arguing that they should commit economic suicide if they truly care about ad tracking. Our culture isn't willing to spend as much on news content as we do Netflix, and that's just a sad reality. Facebook, Youtube, etc. OTOH have built very profitable advertising systems that form the foundation of their entire business. They fully control these ad networks and all their data. And in this case, it sounds like YouTube may have violated COPPA, which is a totally different level of moral failure than choosing to put up ads.

camjohnson26 7y ago
A lot of people pay for the Wall Street Journal. If the news sites would stop giving it away for free maybe people would be forced to start paying. You may think this would just drive people to fake news sources but people actually want something accurate. Fake news only works if it mixes with trustworthy content.
- Macross8299 7y ago
  I think Wall Street Journal/FT are different though, people pay for those because it's a valuable curation of financial/economic news and presents political news through a financial/economics lens and not entirely through the traditional left/right political spectrum lens. Call me cynical, but what makes you think people subscribing to more politically-oriented publications are doing it because they want truly something accurate and not because that publication confirms their biases?
  - camjohnson26 7y ago
    Probably because there’s low cost alternatives if all you care about is confirming your biases.
CamperBob2 7y ago
If WaPo or any other news publication decided to turn off ads out of moral obligation to prove a point, they'd be digging their own graves Why, at this rate, Jeff Bezos might have to shut the Post down in... 6.3 million years.
journalism-lol 7y ago
The honest truth is that no one should pay for news anymore, since it's pretty obvious that journalism simply doesn't matter anymore. Journalism as we know it (knew it) has long since been blown out of the water by 100 different debacles since the 1970's. In fact, journalism never mattered, but it almost seemed to matter in the wake of WWII, because "the good guys" won. Sort of. ( ...or, perhaps more importantly, the really really bad guys lost, and had things been different the aftermath could have gone spectacularly much more terrible) But we know journalism is long since dead, because we watched a war get launched in Iraq, while Fox News lapped it up, and everyone else stood by and did nothing. So whatever "The News" really is, it's not worth a single penny. It produces no results. Don't buy it. Don't pay for it. Don't trust it. There is no "fake news" to worry about because even the real news is beyond meaningless and without value.
colechristensen 7y ago
>nobody pays to read the news anymore I pay for several, quite a few people do.
Nasrudith 7y ago
Umm you do realize Youtube is free to the end user? That makes the two exactly comparable in business model.
- save_ferris 7y ago
  Again, YouTube controls its own ad network. It has full control over what advertising JS is being served to users. It’s also a technology-first company, where advanced web application development is a core competency. News publications aren’t like this at all. They’re embedding Adsense or some other third party ad widgets, probably at the direction of management. They’re serving whatever that black box ad API returns, which could be a lot of things. I haven’t really looked that hard, but are you aware of an ad network that pays comparably to Google that pledges not to track people? It’s kinda hard to imagine that such a thing exists, given the ad industry’s pervasive encroachment on privacy. Also, most publications I’ve interacted with don’t have technical stakeholders at the executive level, and web developers are a back-of-the-house role. They’re not nearly as technically capable as a YouTube
- yeahitslikethat 7y ago
  Except that YouTube doesn't have to pay to produce content so profit is easy at other's expense.
yeahitslikethat 7y ago
The difference is that YouTube makes money on ads on pirated content. Newspapers can't do that. They'd get in trouble.

camjohnson26 7y ago

A lot of people pay for the Wall Street Journal. If the news sites would stop giving it away for free maybe people would be forced to start paying. You may think this would just drive people to fake news sources but people actually want something accurate. Fake news only works if it mixes with trustworthy content.

Macross8299 7y ago
I think Wall Street Journal/FT are different though, people pay for those because it's a valuable curation of financial/economic news and presents political news through a financial/economics lens and not entirely through the traditional left/right political spectrum lens. Call me cynical, but what makes you think people subscribing to more politically-oriented publications are doing it because they want truly something accurate and not because that publication confirms their biases?
- camjohnson26 7y ago
  Probably because there’s low cost alternatives if all you care about is confirming your biases.

CamperBob2 7y ago

If WaPo or any other news publication decided to turn off ads out of moral obligation to prove a point, they'd be digging their own graves Why, at this rate, Jeff Bezos might have to shut the Post down in... 6.3 million years.

journalism-lol 7y ago

The honest truth is that no one should pay for news anymore, since it's pretty obvious that journalism simply doesn't matter anymore. Journalism as we know it (knew it) has long since been blown out of the water by 100 different debacles since the 1970's. In fact, journalism never mattered, but it almost seemed to matter in the wake of WWII, because "the good guys" won. Sort of. ( ...or, perhaps more importantly, the really really bad guys lost, and had things been different the aftermath could have gone spectacularly much more terrible) But we know journalism is long since dead, because we watched a war get launched in Iraq, while Fox News lapped it up, and everyone else stood by and did nothing. So whatever "The News" really is, it's not worth a single penny. It produces no results. Don't buy it. Don't pay for it. Don't trust it. There is no "fake news" to worry about because even the real news is beyond meaningless and without value.

colechristensen 7y ago

>nobody pays to read the news anymore I pay for several, quite a few people do.

Nasrudith 7y ago

Umm you do realize Youtube is free to the end user? That makes the two exactly comparable in business model.

save_ferris 7y ago
Again, YouTube controls its own ad network. It has full control over what advertising JS is being served to users. It’s also a technology-first company, where advanced web application development is a core competency. News publications aren’t like this at all. They’re embedding Adsense or some other third party ad widgets, probably at the direction of management. They’re serving whatever that black box ad API returns, which could be a lot of things. I haven’t really looked that hard, but are you aware of an ad network that pays comparably to Google that pledges not to track people? It’s kinda hard to imagine that such a thing exists, given the ad industry’s pervasive encroachment on privacy. Also, most publications I’ve interacted with don’t have technical stakeholders at the executive level, and web developers are a back-of-the-house role. They’re not nearly as technically capable as a YouTube
yeahitslikethat 7y ago
Except that YouTube doesn't have to pay to produce content so profit is easy at other's expense.

yeahitslikethat 7y ago

The difference is that YouTube makes money on ads on pirated content. Newspapers can't do that. They'd get in trouble.