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> Gresham’s Law, a finance concept which states that bad money drives out good money until only bad money is left. Gresham’s Law can explain why the median cons
by fullstackchris 6y ago
> Gresham’s Law, a finance concept which states that bad money drives out good money until only bad money is left. Gresham’s Law can explain why the median consumer reads low-quality information online
I disagree. I think it has way more to do with the fact that creating noise or uniformed posts, content, etc., even up to the point of sloppy journalism, is produced in such a higher quantity than good and information-rich sources just because it is easier to produce.
"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity". Or, in this case, ignorance / laziness as a substitute or part of that stupidity.
- illwrks 6y agoMy theory is that it's a combination of too many graduates produced with a lower quality of skill, and the removal of editors and traditional information filters.
- simonh 6y agoI think that's a distinction without a difference. Low quality coins and low quality information are both easier/cheaper to produce and so dominate. It's the same effect.
- kgwgk 6y agoThe point of Gresham's Law is that good coins are retired from circulation because they are worth more than bad coins even though their face value as money is the same. That's why you don't see many silver dollars being used to pay for groceries at the supermarket. If you have a silver dollar you don't mix it with the rest of your dollars. How does the analogy with online information work?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- inglor_cz 6y agoIt seems that Gresham's Law does not fully apply here. Otherwise all high quality journalists would disappear. Gresham's Law in financial case is underpinned by two things. First, it is in core interest of every market player to pay with low quality money only; but it is not in interest of every reader to consume or even pay for low quality content only. Second, Gresham's Law only works when an outside authority forces you to accept bad money at the same value as good money; but there isn't really any equivalent of fiat money in journalism. You do not have to click on clickbaity articles at the same rate as on quality ones.
- mrfredward 6y ago>"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity" We really need to stop using Hanlon's razor when discussing businesses at scale. It is a great rule of thumb for everyday people, who are much more careless than malicious. With business though, there is too much money to be made by being shady and then hiding behind plausible deniability to always give the benefit of the doubt. Outside hospital billing companies make mistakes all the time. It seems adequately explained by stupidity...until you realize the mistakes heavily tend in favor of overcharging. If the people who designed the system are benefitting from a systematic error, don't use Hanlon's razor. If a delivery driver leaves your package at the wrong house, it's almost certainly an honest error. If a near monopoly delivery service constantly loses packages while heavily advertising package insurance, then there might be a reason they aren't improving their internal processes. (this isn't in reference to anything, I made up an example that could be either) Anyway, off my rant and to your specific example: In the case of journalism...if clickbait headlines about stupid controversies outperform well written articles, then I have to think media executives know exactly what they're doing when they tell a journalist to bang out a dozen garbage articles a day.
- jagged-chisel 6y agoBad content drowns out good content, perhaps? "...until only bad is left" is a bit of absolutism that we haven't reached yet on the tubes.