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"What are the benefits? " ? That the site exists in the first place ? Why is it so hard for people to do business math and these conversations on HN never hav

by jariel 6y ago

"What are the benefits? " ? That the site exists in the first place ? Why is it so hard for people to do business math and these conversations on HN never have anything to do with material reality of the parties involved? It's understandable that we all want something for free - that's easy - but it's not understandable that we can't grasp how revenue is used to pay journalists etc.. We know they're all on the edge of going out of business and that thousands of news organisations are gone. Whatever our 'personal cost' is, targeting ads definitely works, it makes money. So that's the 'benefit' - you get people doing labour for you which otherwise, you'd have to pay for.

alkonaut 6y ago
Needing ad revenue and needing to track visitors are different things. Structurally obviously we are now in a situation where “well targeted ads” can generate some revenue, and “well behaved ads” barely can. The future has to be one where dumber ads pay more because tracking isn’t technically possible and/or illegal.
- ByteJockey 6y ago
  > The future has to be one where dumber ads pay more because tracking isn’t technically possible and/or illegal. The other option is that everything ad supported goes out of business because the ROI on dumb ads is negative. I don't want to sound like I know this for a fact, but I'd just like to point out that the future doesn't "have" to be anything. There are always multiple options.
  - alkonaut 6y ago
    > The other option is that everything ad supported goes out of business because the ROI on dumb ads is negative. Yes by “has to be” I was expressing a personal desire and prediction, nothing else. It’s probably not one or the other but somewhere in between.
    - ByteJockey 6y ago
      That's fair. I think I was tired when I read your original comment. You have a nice day.
  - marcosdumay 6y ago
    We have a past where dumb ads used to work reasonably well, and could sustain a huge diversity of publications of all sizes. There may be some reason why this can't work again, but all of the reasons I can come up with point to a higher ROI for those ads, not lower.
- jariel 6y ago
  "The future has to be one where dumber ads pay more because tracking isn’t technically possible and/or illegal." So you're inching closer to the reality. Read your statement again though: where is this 'magical ad tech' that enables newsies to make a decent dolllar? It's non existent. Ergo, they are out of business and you get severely limited content. So, either people can chose to share some basic information, pay, or get very little in return - that's the current 'business math'. GDPR fails to take into consideration that math unfortunately. A more progressive solution would be to create solutions not just legislation that doesn't actually change the dynamic.
  - literallycancer 6y ago
    You mean we are going to see proportionally more content from people who actually know what they are writing about rather than professional clickbait writers? Doesn't seem so bleak to me.
    - jariel 6y ago
      'Unpaid home hobbyist writers' don't have more credibility than newsrooms, with budgets, copy editors, massive networks of sources, researchers, professional staff support - which costs money.
      - Nasrudith 6y ago
        I thought the 00s proved that embarassingly that they did, as five minutes of fact checking with a search engine proved they had gotten Middle School level facts deeply wrong.
        jariel 6y ago
        This is a little bit sarcasm, fine but there news is professional business. Random bloggers generally don't have credibility, they can in some instances check facts and even break big stories and so so in a very credible way, however, there's little incentive and they have no power, because they don't make money and mostly don't have an audience. More importantly, nobody cares about them. If they want to speak to 'The Minister of Defence' about an important event, the Minister will not respond. When the BBC/CBC/CNN needs that interview, the Minister will likely, if there's something on the agenda. Because they don't have credibility, sources won't trust them which is the most major source of difficult-to-get-at information. Wikileaks and other teams had to build credibility. And of course the fact that news rooms cover a massive array of subjects. Resigning the entirety of news to 'some checks on Google' is glib.

by jariel 6y ago

alkonaut 6y ago

Needing ad revenue and needing to track visitors are different things. Structurally obviously we are now in a situation where “well targeted ads” can generate some revenue, and “well behaved ads” barely can. The future has to be one where dumber ads pay more because tracking isn’t technically possible and/or illegal.

ByteJockey 6y ago
> The future has to be one where dumber ads pay more because tracking isn’t technically possible and/or illegal. The other option is that everything ad supported goes out of business because the ROI on dumb ads is negative. I don't want to sound like I know this for a fact, but I'd just like to point out that the future doesn't "have" to be anything. There are always multiple options.
- alkonaut 6y ago
  > The other option is that everything ad supported goes out of business because the ROI on dumb ads is negative. Yes by “has to be” I was expressing a personal desire and prediction, nothing else. It’s probably not one or the other but somewhere in between.
  - ByteJockey 6y ago
    That's fair. I think I was tired when I read your original comment. You have a nice day.
- marcosdumay 6y ago
  We have a past where dumb ads used to work reasonably well, and could sustain a huge diversity of publications of all sizes. There may be some reason why this can't work again, but all of the reasons I can come up with point to a higher ROI for those ads, not lower.
jariel 6y ago
"The future has to be one where dumber ads pay more because tracking isn’t technically possible and/or illegal." So you're inching closer to the reality. Read your statement again though: where is this 'magical ad tech' that enables newsies to make a decent dolllar? It's non existent. Ergo, they are out of business and you get severely limited content. So, either people can chose to share some basic information, pay, or get very little in return - that's the current 'business math'. GDPR fails to take into consideration that math unfortunately. A more progressive solution would be to create solutions not just legislation that doesn't actually change the dynamic.
- literallycancer 6y ago
  You mean we are going to see proportionally more content from people who actually know what they are writing about rather than professional clickbait writers? Doesn't seem so bleak to me.
  - jariel 6y ago
    'Unpaid home hobbyist writers' don't have more credibility than newsrooms, with budgets, copy editors, massive networks of sources, researchers, professional staff support - which costs money.
    - Nasrudith 6y ago
      I thought the 00s proved that embarassingly that they did, as five minutes of fact checking with a search engine proved they had gotten Middle School level facts deeply wrong.
      - jariel 6y ago
        This is a little bit sarcasm, fine but there news is professional business. Random bloggers generally don't have credibility, they can in some instances check facts and even break big stories and so so in a very credible way, however, there's little incentive and they have no power, because they don't make money and mostly don't have an audience. More importantly, nobody cares about them. If they want to speak to 'The Minister of Defence' about an important event, the Minister will not respond. When the BBC/CBC/CNN needs that interview, the Minister will likely, if there's something on the agenda. Because they don't have credibility, sources won't trust them which is the most major source of difficult-to-get-at information. Wikileaks and other teams had to build credibility. And of course the fact that news rooms cover a massive array of subjects. Resigning the entirety of news to 'some checks on Google' is glib.