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> In theory, a world of information abundance would bring the best to the top. Using a classic Econ 101 argument, competition should benefit consumers by improv
by wombatmobile 6y ago
> In theory, a world of information abundance would bring the best to the top. Using a classic Econ 101 argument, competition should benefit consumers by improving quality.
That argument makes a giant chasm of an assumption about the mechanism of the market.
In fact, the main driver of the market is the profit motives of publishers and advertisers.
Whilst it is true that one way to profit is to provide sustained long term benefit to consumers, that isn't the only viable business model. A competing model - short term appeal to consumers with long term negative health impacts - co-exists in the market and competes for attention and spending.
- fullstackchris 6y agoAll true, and going even further, the sentences following that also falsly assume that most people _want_ to read the highest quality sources. Wrong. To use the author's reference to Twitter as an example, a lot of people, even very intellectual ones, use Twitter as just a way to "let steam out" so to speak, and other users only engage with content that charges them emotionally. Now adays we have days of rage, reaching major media coverage, based on trivial crap like the title of the First Lady to-be, or hell, even the picture taken for a frickin Vogue cover. Also as you said, the publishers and advertisers have a lot of the power, and they know exactly how to push the buttons of our human biases and clickbaity titles to get clicks, regardless of the quality of the actual things they are advertising. EDIT: I commented too quickly. The author quickly indeed verifies that the opposite is happening :)
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- inglor_cz 6y agoWhat is "quality", though? Customers can crave things that harm them. For example, alcohol and drugs. An efficient market will provide them with whisky and crack for very low price, if this is what they want. Same with bad journalism. Internetesque clickbait is just another form of tabloid journalism, and tabloids usually sell really well. Daily Mail sells a lot more copies than Financial Times.
- protonfish 6y agoA great point. I would argue that the "quality" of information in this context is a measure of what people want to hear, and has little to do with the accuracy or usefulness of the information. Using that definition, the overwhelming prevalence of misinformation appears to be exactly as predicted.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]