4 ms·

Sadly this. A lot of the "old" media companies saw the "success" of free online content, be it digital-only-ad-based publishers, be it social media, and started

Sadly this. A lot of the "old" media companies saw the "success" of free online content, be it digital-only-ad-based publishers, be it social media, and started to mimic that, and in the process not only desperately pivoted into a market that in fact isn't as successful as they thought but also burnt a lot of their reputation in the process. Right now it seems back to paid models for a lot, but I wonder if it's too late now with all the damaged reputation and the shift in consumer expectation (that they help create) that news and journalism should be free. I'd guess for a lot of those newspapers and magazines it will be too late, while a few will survive the onslaught and be able to concentrate the willing-to-pay consumers.

Alex3917 6y ago
> the shift in consumer expectation (that they help create) that news and journalism should be free OK but they created that expectation in the 1890s. The Internet isn't the cause of the media companies' problems, it's just beating them at their own game.
- rndgermandude 6y ago
  Not really. There has been a long tradition of mostly shit quality journalism available for "free", along with some refurbished agency reporting, true. However, the quality journalism for the most part was still paid, as in buy a paper or magazine or a subscription, if you want reliable and regular in depth journalistic reporting and/or investigation (with some exceptions, of course). That really only shifted when publishers en masse put stuff on the web for "free", financed by ads.
busterarm 6y ago
It doesn't matter what they do. Youtube personalities are aggregating and editorializing their content and making millions to pay for a staff of 1. Others are just going and doing the reporting themselves and doing similarly -- paying for the camera crew and legal defense out of their own pockets. Those youtube personalities dwarf the reach and viewership that all but the clickbaitiest media companies are getting. That's what's satisfying the market need right now. That's what media companies have to compete against. They'll never get back the dominant position that they once had and ads will never work for their business again. Why would I pay for a display ad on your site when I can pay for a video ad that has much better targeting? This is the issue that most people have missed. Advertising dollars flow to where they are most efficient. News site display ads are a shotgun whereas youtube channel, facebook page, news aggregator ads are a sniper. If any periodical is going to succeed, they're going to need to cater to a hyper specific niche that has cash.
- ridaj 6y ago
  > staff of 1 Err no, it might look that way sometimes so that it seems authentic, but most major youtubers have staff. They are way more lean on expense than the TV pundits but still!
  - busterarm 6y ago
    I'm aware that many do, but some of the ones I'm thinking of, specifically in this context, do not. Also we're comparing this to entire media organizations, so it's mostly irrelevant.
  - nradov 6y ago
    The Joe Rogan Experience podcast has only one full time employee beyond the host, plus a few part timers for special projects. It is hugely profitable with a valuation far higher than some whole media companies with orders of magnitude more employees.
  - bigbubba 6y ago
    How often are those staff paid with money rather than 'exposure'? AFAIK pewdiepie does not pay his 'staff' editors.
tripzilch 6y ago
Well it's not like they didn't know that people hate ad networks, hate getting tracked the shit out of them, hate downloading 5MB of mysterious JS to read a 2kB article. The sliminess of the online advertising industry wasn't a secret 10 years ago or something. So don't talk about it as if they ever were an ethical source of business income. (Not just talking about all the lying that is inherent in advertising, print ads suffer from that too) They never were, they're not like inert pieces of your magazine. They're little pieces of software doing whatever the fuck it likes, control that you offer to semi-anonymous parties over your readers. Imagine if a print newspaper didn't just sell ad space in their print, but whoever buys the ad also determines what ink it is printed with. And the ink can be any substance! Sometimes it's ink, sometimes it's poop, sometimes it's smallpox, sometimes it's radioactive. I mean, MOST of the time it's really just ink, with only a tiny amount of aerosolized heroin, just your average respectable ads. But every once in a while, and there is really nothing to do but hope it happens to the other paper first, it'll really harm the reader. I mean you can't really expect a news magazine to check all the ink its printed with right, just doesn't scale.

Alex3917 6y ago

> the shift in consumer expectation (that they help create) that news and journalism should be free OK but they created that expectation in the 1890s. The Internet isn't the cause of the media companies' problems, it's just beating them at their own game.

rndgermandude 6y ago
Not really. There has been a long tradition of mostly shit quality journalism available for "free", along with some refurbished agency reporting, true. However, the quality journalism for the most part was still paid, as in buy a paper or magazine or a subscription, if you want reliable and regular in depth journalistic reporting and/or investigation (with some exceptions, of course). That really only shifted when publishers en masse put stuff on the web for "free", financed by ads.

busterarm 6y ago

It doesn't matter what they do. Youtube personalities are aggregating and editorializing their content and making millions to pay for a staff of 1. Others are just going and doing the reporting themselves and doing similarly -- paying for the camera crew and legal defense out of their own pockets. Those youtube personalities dwarf the reach and viewership that all but the clickbaitiest media companies are getting. That's what's satisfying the market need right now. That's what media companies have to compete against. They'll never get back the dominant position that they once had and ads will never work for their business again. Why would I pay for a display ad on your site when I can pay for a video ad that has much better targeting? This is the issue that most people have missed. Advertising dollars flow to where they are most efficient. News site display ads are a shotgun whereas youtube channel, facebook page, news aggregator ads are a sniper. If any periodical is going to succeed, they're going to need to cater to a hyper specific niche that has cash.

ridaj 6y ago
> staff of 1 Err no, it might look that way sometimes so that it seems authentic, but most major youtubers have staff. They are way more lean on expense than the TV pundits but still!
- busterarm 6y ago
  I'm aware that many do, but some of the ones I'm thinking of, specifically in this context, do not. Also we're comparing this to entire media organizations, so it's mostly irrelevant.
- nradov 6y ago
  The Joe Rogan Experience podcast has only one full time employee beyond the host, plus a few part timers for special projects. It is hugely profitable with a valuation far higher than some whole media companies with orders of magnitude more employees.
- bigbubba 6y ago
  How often are those staff paid with money rather than 'exposure'? AFAIK pewdiepie does not pay his 'staff' editors.

tripzilch 6y ago

Well it's not like they didn't know that people hate ad networks, hate getting tracked the shit out of them, hate downloading 5MB of mysterious JS to read a 2kB article. The sliminess of the online advertising industry wasn't a secret 10 years ago or something. So don't talk about it as if they ever were an ethical source of business income. (Not just talking about all the lying that is inherent in advertising, print ads suffer from that too) They never were, they're not like inert pieces of your magazine. They're little pieces of software doing whatever the fuck it likes, control that you offer to semi-anonymous parties over your readers. Imagine if a print newspaper didn't just sell ad space in their print, but whoever buys the ad also determines what ink it is printed with. And the ink can be any substance! Sometimes it's ink, sometimes it's poop, sometimes it's smallpox, sometimes it's radioactive. I mean, MOST of the time it's really just ink, with only a tiny amount of aerosolized heroin, just your average respectable ads. But every once in a while, and there is really nothing to do but hope it happens to the other paper first, it'll really harm the reader. I mean you can't really expect a news magazine to check all the ink its printed with right, just doesn't scale.