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>The fair market price for content is $0. That's a gross oversimplification. Lots of content isn't worth anything but some is. If you're a stock trader, for ex

>The fair market price for content is $0. That's a gross oversimplification. Lots of content isn't worth anything but some is. If you're a stock trader, for example, certain timely information is well-worth paying for. And there's a market for that served by Bloomberg, Thomson-Reuters, and so on. The term "content" obscures the differences by suggesting its all interchangeable. That's certainly in the interest of the Googles and Facebooks of the world: When all content is equal, no content creator has any negotiating power. But there's a distinction between a multi-month investigative report and hastily paraphrased rewrite at some fly-by-night website intent on capturing algorithmic ad dollars. Pricing news content is hard because it has a different value to different people and often the value is only apparent after it has been consumed. It's worth asking how much we will pay for reports on political corruption, civic injustice, and so on. If the price for content is $0, the signal to noise ratio will disappear.

marcus_holmes 6y ago
I think journalism is going to have to clean up its act a lot before I'm willing to trust it enough to pay for it. I'm seeing more credible journalism done by bloggers than the mainstream media at the moment.
zelly 6y ago
I meant "content" as in cultural content--articles, Q&A submissions, blog posts, takes, memes, recipes, how-tos, tutorials. Content that makes up >80% of G search results. At one time, there was a price for such content because you could only get it from a print publication or from broadcast television. Now that there are no barriers to posting, we see how many people actually want to publish content even if they have to pay out of pocket to host it (i.e., making the price of their content negative since the consumer gets to freeload bandwidth without ads and consume content). > Pricing news content is hard because it has a different value to different people and often the value is only apparent after it has been consumed. You're suggesting that journalism is a public good because the value is captured by society as a whole as opposed to by the individual newspaper subscriber. I wouldn't argue against investigative journalism being important for democracy etc., but why does it need to cost anything (even by the public)? What about the whole Harvey Weinstein/MeToo saga which started after some individuals made some tweets without being paid by a journalism company to do so. There is no shortage of outraged citizen activists who will do "investigative journalism". I don't know why their free work should automatically be considered inferior just because they don't have a journalism degree and aren't being paid by a journalism company.
- charles_f 6y ago
  How do the patreons of the world fit in there? There is such content creators that I enjoy enough to give them a few bucks every month to make sure they can keep doing it
lordgrenville 6y ago
Stuff like Bloomberg, Thomson-Reuters, etc is valuable to a specific type of professional and will always have a niche audience. That isn't really what the discussion is about. Reporting on corruption and injustice is critical to a society, but doesn't have any monetary value. The way I see it, we already have a way we choose to fund that kind of thing: non-profits/NGOs. Some media outlets (Vox, The Guardian) are already turning to just asking for money in this way, and over time journalism might become more formalised as something funded by the public for civic ends, not as a commercial product. To that end it should be unbundled from stuff like sports coverage and celebrity gossip - which might really end up disappearing as a viable career and be done exclusively by amateurs.
- Kye 6y ago
  ProPublica seems to break a couple of huge stories every year operating as a nonprofit. The fact that they aren't ad funded means they don't have to churn out lots of Content to keep eyeballs coming, so I know every story I hear from them is worth my attention.
  - lordgrenville 6y ago
    Yeah, it's a good example.

marcus_holmes 6y ago

I think journalism is going to have to clean up its act a lot before I'm willing to trust it enough to pay for it. I'm seeing more credible journalism done by bloggers than the mainstream media at the moment.

zelly 6y ago

I meant "content" as in cultural content--articles, Q&A submissions, blog posts, takes, memes, recipes, how-tos, tutorials. Content that makes up >80% of G search results. At one time, there was a price for such content because you could only get it from a print publication or from broadcast television. Now that there are no barriers to posting, we see how many people actually want to publish content even if they have to pay out of pocket to host it (i.e., making the price of their content negative since the consumer gets to freeload bandwidth without ads and consume content). > Pricing news content is hard because it has a different value to different people and often the value is only apparent after it has been consumed. You're suggesting that journalism is a public good because the value is captured by society as a whole as opposed to by the individual newspaper subscriber. I wouldn't argue against investigative journalism being important for democracy etc., but why does it need to cost anything (even by the public)? What about the whole Harvey Weinstein/MeToo saga which started after some individuals made some tweets without being paid by a journalism company to do so. There is no shortage of outraged citizen activists who will do "investigative journalism". I don't know why their free work should automatically be considered inferior just because they don't have a journalism degree and aren't being paid by a journalism company.

charles_f 6y ago
How do the patreons of the world fit in there? There is such content creators that I enjoy enough to give them a few bucks every month to make sure they can keep doing it

lordgrenville 6y ago

Stuff like Bloomberg, Thomson-Reuters, etc is valuable to a specific type of professional and will always have a niche audience. That isn't really what the discussion is about. Reporting on corruption and injustice is critical to a society, but doesn't have any monetary value. The way I see it, we already have a way we choose to fund that kind of thing: non-profits/NGOs. Some media outlets (Vox, The Guardian) are already turning to just asking for money in this way, and over time journalism might become more formalised as something funded by the public for civic ends, not as a commercial product. To that end it should be unbundled from stuff like sports coverage and celebrity gossip - which might really end up disappearing as a viable career and be done exclusively by amateurs.

Kye 6y ago
ProPublica seems to break a couple of huge stories every year operating as a nonprofit. The fact that they aren't ad funded means they don't have to churn out lots of Content to keep eyeballs coming, so I know every story I hear from them is worth my attention.
- lordgrenville 6y ago
  Yeah, it's a good example.