6 ms·

So what should the "finance" person do? Stop thinking in a financial way? Pretty sure the journalists like having a job, too. These ads are there because they

So what should the "finance" person do? Stop thinking in a financial way? Pretty sure the journalists like having a job, too. These ads are there because they work, savvy users might not like them, you don't, I don't. It's time for new players to step up and disrupt this market, but not if that means a loss for businesses. That's the challenge.

majewsky 7y ago
The "finance person" should start thinking beyond the current quarter, and recognize the long-term damage they're inflicting on their brand by associating it with shitty garbage content.
kabwj 7y ago
If you are forced to resort to these things to survive maybe you should do something else. Maybe these journalists should learn to code.
- mean_jean 7y ago
  I'm a coder journalists. I could make a lot more outside of journalism but I believe in the mission as do the traditional journalists. We don't just like having jobs - we do it because our democracy and society wouldn't work as well without it. Sometimes there are trade offs made to pay the bills so we can do the work that matters. It's not ideal but the whole industry is just trying to keep their heads above water right now.
TeMPOraL 7y ago
Grow a backbone? We're not talking about whether the CTA button should be light blue or dark blue. We're talking about decision to unleash some of the worst garbage Internet has on unsuspecting and unwilling people. It hurts individuals, and drags down both the industry and the society at large. Someone in the company should be able to say "no" to that. The author of the article described some of the consequences, strongly implying but stopping short of saying one thing out loud, so I'll say it here: chumboxes are unethical products, and showing chumboxes is unethical behaviour too. (But yeah, I do understand competitive pressure. That's why I hope we eventually get around to killing Taboola and friends through regulatory means.)
- joaodlf 7y ago
  > Grow a backbone? No idea what this means from a business perspective.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    Business is made of people. People are entities with conscience. Conscience, when applied, can be a market signal.
    - Noos 7y ago
      The issue is that the web-driven model of free content is unsustainable to the point these junk ads leading to junk sites are attractive to finance. The big issue is that the economics of journalistic and creative content aren't sustainable ethically any more. I don't think anyone LIKES renting a storefront to a pawnshop, for example, but if they are the only ones who want to rent your location, you're screwed. Essentially ethical business would wind up needing the journalism market to implode, ending up with a few state-subsidized outlets that could more or less survive with no advertising at all.
      - mean_jean 7y ago
        I don't have the solution but I don't think state-subsidized is it. It's a conflict of interest when the people you're trying to hold accountable are the ones writing your paycheck. Congress (usually the members unhappy with the coverage) is constantly trying to cut funding from NPR, and it's very difficult to budget and plan long term when you don't know if you will continue to be funded. Big advertisers do occasionally pull out over negative coverage, which is another reason diversified revenue streams are essential.
        TeMPOraL 7y ago
        > I don't have the solution but I don't think state-subsidized is it. It's a conflict of interest when the people you're trying to hold accountable are the ones writing your paycheck. The current alternative seems to be a combination of "that, but indirectly, through access to primary sources" and "your paycheck comes from turning everyone against everyone by saturating their attention with outrage-inducing content". Is that really better?
crispyambulance 7y ago
> ...time for new players to step up and > disrupt this market, but not if that means > a loss for businesses. That's the challenge. No, that's not the challenge. We've sadly reached the point where "loss of business" is on the table for people who care about ethics. If the only way a newspaper can stay afloat is by displaying junk from taboola/outbrain, perhaps it's time for them to close-up shop? The "challenge" is to get more people to use adblockers, punish scammers ruthlessly, and demand that the journalism sites which are worth anything at all to screen the the ads they accept and perhaps even face consequences for displaying proven scammer ads.
- mean_jean 7y ago
  Does that mean you're willing to pay for the journalism if it doesn't have ads? So far that model hasn't worked either. Or are you saying you would rather the reporting didn't exist than it be supported by ads you find distasteful? If that's the case, don't consume the news. If I believe my work is a valuable service to my community, closing up shop is more than a "loss of business".
criddell 7y ago
> Pretty sure the journalists like having a job, too. If those shitty ads at the bottom of the page make the difference between surviving or folding, then I have a bit of sympathy for the truly desperate situation they are in. However, that's not normally the case. Instead it means a small bump in revenue for no extra work and that's hard for somebody that only cares about this quarter's numbers to say no to no matter how healthy the profit numbers are.
- chipotle_coyote 7y ago
  The linked article -- and others I've read on this topic -- suggest that it's actually a big bump in revenue, which is the source of the problem. The article quoted Outbrain's deal with Time Magazine as bringing in $100M, and while that may be an outlier, it suggests that bringing in millions of dollars with these chumboxes isn't at all out of the question. If your magazine/news site has been seeing its revenue steadily decreasing over the past decade, you've been through two rounds of layoffs, and Taboola comes along and says, "Hey, we can help you bring in an extra five million a year"...
  - criddell 7y ago
    $100M sounds like a lot of money, but that's over 3 years. So $33.3M per year or roughly $2.8 million per month. Time claims to see 65 million unique visitors per month so that works out to less than a nickle per unique user every month. I'm paying Google Fi $10 / gigabyte for bandwidth on my phone. If the images and javascript in an Outbrain ad are more than 5 MB, then I'm paying more for the bandwidth than Time is getting to show me that. I wish I could just pay Time sixty cents per year and not have to see those ads.
    - chipotle_coyote 7y ago
      I see what you're saying, but the flip side is that in absolute terms rather than "revenue per unique user," over $30M a year is, well, over $30M a year. In 2016, Time Inc's net profit was under $20M a quarter -- that's not Time Magazine, that's the whole company. If you're in that position, bringing in another $7.5M a year for letting somebody put crappy ads at the bottom of your articles could be awfully tempting.
Hoasi 7y ago
You are right, but this is a miscalculation in the long run. Any operation allowing these ads risk damaging their reputation.
braythwayt 7y ago
Selling cigarettes works. Selling cigarettes to children works. Come to think of it, putting children to work in factories works. Dumping pollution in drinking water sources works. Lots of things work. Of course "Finance People" are supposed to say no, because they are finance PEOPLE, not finance algorithms.
- la_barba 7y ago
  > Selling cigarettes to children works. No, it doesn't work at all. That's illegal. >Come to think of it, putting children to work in factories works. Dumping pollution in drinking water sources works. Nope. That's illegal too.. >Lots of things work. If you're making a list of things that are illegal, you're going to need a bigger comment box. There is no need to needlessly take things to the extreme when it was very obvious that what we're talking about is in no way shape or form comparable to exploiting children.
  - hndamien 7y ago
    They weren't always illegal.
    - braythwayt 7y ago
      Precisely. Thank you.
    - la_barba 7y ago
      Okay? Comparing click-bait ads to child exploitation still makes no sense. It is incredibly insensitive to draw any kind of analogy between the two.
icxa 7y ago
Maybe they could take a gut check and realize that we might be faced with the grim reality that in the era of twitter and instant news via social media, we don't need these old establishment media orgs anymore. The fact that they all have to result to these tactics of hosting (and producing) click bait articles, as well as their numerous other dark patterns they employ on their sites, paywalls, etc, should show to their board or leadership that maybe the demand for their product just isn't there anymore. There's nothing that says "CNN", "NYT", et all need to be legacy multi-century businesses. It's how it goes in this country. How many businesses from 100 years ago are around today? Nothing wrong with it, it's just the circle of business life.
- mean_jean 7y ago
  The commodity information you get from social media is not the same thing as investigative reporting that takes months of research, public records requests, shoe leather reporting, data analysis and interviews to uncover corruption in government, abuses of power, regulatory loopholes etc. Twitter does not fill the role of the forth estate and society would not be better off without it. It's easy to take it for granted when you get all of the benefits without bearing any of the costs.
  - sizzle 7y ago
    My question is then, has society dumbed down so much from the ADD nature of the internet and ubiquitous computing, that traditional long-form sources of news media are no longer relevant for the ways people choose to consume them? e.g. news channels posting bite sized stories via snapchat stories feed, etc.
    - mean_jean 7y ago
      It's still relevant. Lots of people still want the traditional long form, it's just that the old business model for delivering it doesn't work anymore, and people (reasonably) don't understand why they should pay for something that used to be free. And yes, snapchat (etc) stories are an interesting delivery channel, and we're trying that too (although again, how to monetize that).

majewsky 7y ago

The "finance person" should start thinking beyond the current quarter, and recognize the long-term damage they're inflicting on their brand by associating it with shitty garbage content.

kabwj 7y ago

If you are forced to resort to these things to survive maybe you should do something else. Maybe these journalists should learn to code.

mean_jean 7y ago
I'm a coder journalists. I could make a lot more outside of journalism but I believe in the mission as do the traditional journalists. We don't just like having jobs - we do it because our democracy and society wouldn't work as well without it. Sometimes there are trade offs made to pay the bills so we can do the work that matters. It's not ideal but the whole industry is just trying to keep their heads above water right now.

TeMPOraL 7y ago

Grow a backbone? We're not talking about whether the CTA button should be light blue or dark blue. We're talking about decision to unleash some of the worst garbage Internet has on unsuspecting and unwilling people. It hurts individuals, and drags down both the industry and the society at large. Someone in the company should be able to say "no" to that. The author of the article described some of the consequences, strongly implying but stopping short of saying one thing out loud, so I'll say it here: chumboxes are unethical products, and showing chumboxes is unethical behaviour too. (But yeah, I do understand competitive pressure. That's why I hope we eventually get around to killing Taboola and friends through regulatory means.)

joaodlf 7y ago
> Grow a backbone? No idea what this means from a business perspective.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  Business is made of people. People are entities with conscience. Conscience, when applied, can be a market signal.
  - Noos 7y ago
    The issue is that the web-driven model of free content is unsustainable to the point these junk ads leading to junk sites are attractive to finance. The big issue is that the economics of journalistic and creative content aren't sustainable ethically any more. I don't think anyone LIKES renting a storefront to a pawnshop, for example, but if they are the only ones who want to rent your location, you're screwed. Essentially ethical business would wind up needing the journalism market to implode, ending up with a few state-subsidized outlets that could more or less survive with no advertising at all.
    - mean_jean 7y ago
      I don't have the solution but I don't think state-subsidized is it. It's a conflict of interest when the people you're trying to hold accountable are the ones writing your paycheck. Congress (usually the members unhappy with the coverage) is constantly trying to cut funding from NPR, and it's very difficult to budget and plan long term when you don't know if you will continue to be funded. Big advertisers do occasionally pull out over negative coverage, which is another reason diversified revenue streams are essential.
      - TeMPOraL 7y ago
        > I don't have the solution but I don't think state-subsidized is it. It's a conflict of interest when the people you're trying to hold accountable are the ones writing your paycheck. The current alternative seems to be a combination of "that, but indirectly, through access to primary sources" and "your paycheck comes from turning everyone against everyone by saturating their attention with outrage-inducing content". Is that really better?

crispyambulance 7y ago

> ...time for new players to step up and > disrupt this market, but not if that means > a loss for businesses. That's the challenge. No, that's not the challenge. We've sadly reached the point where "loss of business" is on the table for people who care about ethics. If the only way a newspaper can stay afloat is by displaying junk from taboola/outbrain, perhaps it's time for them to close-up shop? The "challenge" is to get more people to use adblockers, punish scammers ruthlessly, and demand that the journalism sites which are worth anything at all to screen the the ads they accept and perhaps even face consequences for displaying proven scammer ads.

mean_jean 7y ago
Does that mean you're willing to pay for the journalism if it doesn't have ads? So far that model hasn't worked either. Or are you saying you would rather the reporting didn't exist than it be supported by ads you find distasteful? If that's the case, don't consume the news. If I believe my work is a valuable service to my community, closing up shop is more than a "loss of business".

criddell 7y ago

> Pretty sure the journalists like having a job, too. If those shitty ads at the bottom of the page make the difference between surviving or folding, then I have a bit of sympathy for the truly desperate situation they are in. However, that's not normally the case. Instead it means a small bump in revenue for no extra work and that's hard for somebody that only cares about this quarter's numbers to say no to no matter how healthy the profit numbers are.

chipotle_coyote 7y ago
The linked article -- and others I've read on this topic -- suggest that it's actually a big bump in revenue, which is the source of the problem. The article quoted Outbrain's deal with Time Magazine as bringing in $100M, and while that may be an outlier, it suggests that bringing in millions of dollars with these chumboxes isn't at all out of the question. If your magazine/news site has been seeing its revenue steadily decreasing over the past decade, you've been through two rounds of layoffs, and Taboola comes along and says, "Hey, we can help you bring in an extra five million a year"...
- criddell 7y ago
  $100M sounds like a lot of money, but that's over 3 years. So $33.3M per year or roughly $2.8 million per month. Time claims to see 65 million unique visitors per month so that works out to less than a nickle per unique user every month. I'm paying Google Fi $10 / gigabyte for bandwidth on my phone. If the images and javascript in an Outbrain ad are more than 5 MB, then I'm paying more for the bandwidth than Time is getting to show me that. I wish I could just pay Time sixty cents per year and not have to see those ads.
  - chipotle_coyote 7y ago
    I see what you're saying, but the flip side is that in absolute terms rather than "revenue per unique user," over $30M a year is, well, over $30M a year. In 2016, Time Inc's net profit was under $20M a quarter -- that's not Time Magazine, that's the whole company. If you're in that position, bringing in another $7.5M a year for letting somebody put crappy ads at the bottom of your articles could be awfully tempting.

Hoasi 7y ago

You are right, but this is a miscalculation in the long run. Any operation allowing these ads risk damaging their reputation.

braythwayt 7y ago

Selling cigarettes works. Selling cigarettes to children works. Come to think of it, putting children to work in factories works. Dumping pollution in drinking water sources works. Lots of things work. Of course "Finance People" are supposed to say no, because they are finance PEOPLE, not finance algorithms.

la_barba 7y ago
> Selling cigarettes to children works. No, it doesn't work at all. That's illegal. >Come to think of it, putting children to work in factories works. Dumping pollution in drinking water sources works. Nope. That's illegal too.. >Lots of things work. If you're making a list of things that are illegal, you're going to need a bigger comment box. There is no need to needlessly take things to the extreme when it was very obvious that what we're talking about is in no way shape or form comparable to exploiting children.
- hndamien 7y ago
  They weren't always illegal.
  - braythwayt 7y ago
    Precisely. Thank you.
  - la_barba 7y ago
    Okay? Comparing click-bait ads to child exploitation still makes no sense. It is incredibly insensitive to draw any kind of analogy between the two.

icxa 7y ago

Maybe they could take a gut check and realize that we might be faced with the grim reality that in the era of twitter and instant news via social media, we don't need these old establishment media orgs anymore. The fact that they all have to result to these tactics of hosting (and producing) click bait articles, as well as their numerous other dark patterns they employ on their sites, paywalls, etc, should show to their board or leadership that maybe the demand for their product just isn't there anymore. There's nothing that says "CNN", "NYT", et all need to be legacy multi-century businesses. It's how it goes in this country. How many businesses from 100 years ago are around today? Nothing wrong with it, it's just the circle of business life.

mean_jean 7y ago
The commodity information you get from social media is not the same thing as investigative reporting that takes months of research, public records requests, shoe leather reporting, data analysis and interviews to uncover corruption in government, abuses of power, regulatory loopholes etc. Twitter does not fill the role of the forth estate and society would not be better off without it. It's easy to take it for granted when you get all of the benefits without bearing any of the costs.
- sizzle 7y ago
  My question is then, has society dumbed down so much from the ADD nature of the internet and ubiquitous computing, that traditional long-form sources of news media are no longer relevant for the ways people choose to consume them? e.g. news channels posting bite sized stories via snapchat stories feed, etc.
  - mean_jean 7y ago
    It's still relevant. Lots of people still want the traditional long form, it's just that the old business model for delivering it doesn't work anymore, and people (reasonably) don't understand why they should pay for something that used to be free. And yes, snapchat (etc) stories are an interesting delivery channel, and we're trying that too (although again, how to monetize that).