7 ms·

> be "like if you had to pay to tell your friends about a new coffee shop"[1]. That is what the law does though. It only does it for google and facebook, and o

by graeme 6y ago

> be "like if you had to pay to tell your friends about a new coffee shop"[1]. That is what the law does though. It only does it for google and facebook, and only for news, but it does exactly that. Not only that, but in the coffee shop example you must give a recommendation. You can’t decline to do so even though the govt really will send you a bill. You also have to give 14 day advance notice to coffee shops that you are going to change your recommendations. This also changes your recommendation cycle: if a coffeeshop starts serving bad coffee you have to wait 14 days to stop recommending them, and you’ll have to pay them every time you recommend them during that period. The bill is exactly that dumb. It can be hard to explain something is dumb without sounding condescending. Google probably could have done a better job. But....were you objecting to the coffee analogy because it’s wrong? It isn’t.

mattmanser 6y ago
Exactly what's "dumb" about this? You've got Google, who are now pretty much running the world high street as the quintessential evil rentier, providing little value while extracting virtually all the profits. They are constantly moving the goal posts, which can ruin businesses overnight, with no oversight. Now they have to tell businesses beforehand before they make them bankrupt, so the business at least has a chance to change. Does that sound less dumb and more reasonable if written that way?
- username90 6y ago
  Remove Google and you'll likely see the open web slowly dying as the remaining big corps reduces its power and moves everything to walled gardens.
  - username90 6y ago
    To explain further, Microsoft, Facebook, Apple and Amazon would be happy if the open web died and people had to use apps instead. The only big player with self interest in ensuring the open web continues to exist and be a good user experience is Google.
    - kaba0 6y ago
      Google is the single most dangerous entity when it comes to the open web. Basically the current web is more or less the walled garden of google and it has the power to decide the future of web technologies
      - username90 6y ago
        Right, but remove that Google "garden" and you close the web to many people. It might become more open to some people like you, but the average user likely will stop using it entirely. With that many will just stop maintaining a web page since the users are found elsewhere, and from there it is just going downhill until we are at current linux adoption rates. It will be alive, but only for enthusiasts.
  - graeme 6y ago
    Not an idle risk either. Search engines are not a big feature of the net in China for example. At least not relative to the rest of the world.
- chipgap98 6y ago
  No it really doesn't. > providing little value while extracting virtually all the profits This is a wildly inaccurate statement. Users have every opportunity to visit the news sites directly and yet they choose not to. So clearly search and social media sites are providing value. > They are constantly moving the goal posts, which can ruin businesses overnight We're only talking about news businesses for the purposes of this law. If a news outlet is entirely dependent on google search traffic for their revenue then they don't have a stable business to begin with. This whole law makes the assumption that Google and Facebook are the reason new outlets are losing revenue, but I have yet to see any evidence of that.
  - acct776 6y ago
    > Users have every opportunity "But that's how I get to the website, I type it into the Google!"
    - danShumway 6y ago
      If you want to ban Google, then just ban Google. You don't need to set this kind of awful precedent while you're doing it. This weird, "we hate Google, so we're going to pass this massive indirect law that reinterprets fair use, but only applies to them" is pointless and counterproductive. If you don't believe that Google is providing any value, then ban search engines and see how the people of Australia react. But I don't actually believe that the problem people have here is that they think users are forced to look up websites through Google. If that was the problem, then people on both sides would be encouraging Google to pull out of Australia. It's nonsensical to say that indexing websites isn't a valuable service.
      - nwienert 6y ago
        Do you think Google has any strong competition? I think a lot of what’s not being discussed in this thread is that in a competitive market consumers could vote with feet, and the resulting competitive pressure would naturally drive better behaviors, but because that’s lacking governments are now poorly attempting to “fight back”. In a sense, with enough kludgy regulation, eventually there may be enough daylight for a competitor to pop up, and until then people will argue passionately past each other, one libertarian side worried about libertarian things, and the other populist side worried about populist things, etc.
- UncleMeat 6y ago
  > You've got Google, who are now pretty much running the world high street as the quintessential evil rentier, providing little value while extracting virtually all the profits. They can't be providing little value, because the law here demands that Google link to news articles. If there was no value in the search traffic then news media companies would be fine with "okay, we will simply drop google news and stop linking to news media" but they aren't okay with that.
throwaway2245 6y ago
I am not clever enough to understand this analogy, at all. Why would Google be opening a coffee shop? Could you please translate this analogy into the factual situation, so that I can understand your point of view?
- account42 6y ago
  In this analogy google is the "friend" and the news site is the coffe shop. Telling you about the coffee shop is linking to it in search results.
  - graeme 6y ago
    Actually you are google and your friend is the one searching.
- graeme 6y ago
  You are google in the analogy. Your friend is someone using google. The coffee shop is the newspaper. Your friend (the searcher) asks you for a cafe recommendation (searches a current event on google) and you tell them the main street cafe is great and you should buy something there (google says the nyt is trustworthy and you should read their page) The australian law says you should pay the cafe to send them customers (says google should pay the nyt to send them readers) It’s really dumb. The cafe wants referrals: why should you pay them? Dunno australian news so I used the NYT as an example.
  - mmmeff 6y ago
    Thanks for breaking this down for us. I wouldn’t say it’s dumb on the surface though - I’m kind of curious to what logical extremes this approach to Google’s business model would look like. It definitely is a very different paradigm. I’m wondering how free market forces will influence rankings when business can set prices for referrals.
    - graeme 6y ago
      The market price for a referral is negative. Businesses would normally pay to seek them out. The australian law seeks to flip this on its head and make you pay to recommend, and forbids you from declining to recommend. Right now it only applies to google but the principle is insane. People actively pay google to recommend their sites: it’s the entire basis of google ads!
barneygale 6y ago
Analogies to small businesses do not work because Google distorts the marketplace.
- DiggyJohnson 6y ago
  This simple point is perhaps the most critical. When a firm can affect radically affect markets across different sectors, the simplicity of argumentation really breaks down.
  - graeme 6y ago
    Suppose there was no google and no search engines, but the internet remained. What would happen to news? Would people go back to reading print newspapers. Would people start paying premium for newspaper display ads when such ads do not command a premium on other web sites? No. People would find their news as they do now, on twitter, on reddit, via emailed links, via text messages from friends. In what way has google distorted the news market, separate from the internet itself?
- PoignardAzur 6y ago
  No, no, no. The internet distorts the marketplace. Google happens to be the wealthiest, most powerful internet companies. Saying "Google distorts the marketplace" hides the fact that none of the internet companies, big or small, would be okay with this. When we invent a refrigerator, the refrigerator companies aren't legally obligated to write checks to ice-diggers for putting them out of work. I don't see why this should be any different.
danShumway 6y ago
To extend off of this, to the point of: > Their spokesperson spoke to users like they were kindergarten children It's very difficult when you're in this position to come up with a way to show why something is so wrong without being at least little cynical or infantilizing. What do you do when someone is arguing something that's wrong on an extremely basic level, but also gets annoyed and feels condescended to whenever you try to explain basic principles to them? If someone sticks their hand on a lit stove, and argues with you about why actually it's good to stick their hand on a lit stove, at some point there isn't a response you can have that isn't going to be infantilizing, at some point you're just going to have to say "hot things make you go ow." If people are angry that Google is insulting them by explaining these basic analogies, then it's harsh, but I kind of feel like I want to say -- don't make mistakes that warrant those analogies. I think it would be a mistake for companies like Google to act like this is a reasonable debate being held between people with honest disagreements about infrastructure. It's not. It's a debate with an industry/government that fundamentally either doesn't understand how the Internet works or doesn't care. People are mad that Google isn't treating a really bad argument like it's a good one. But it's not a good argument, and it doesn't help anyone to pretend that it is or prop it up and treat it like some kind of serious, reasonable discussion.
- dragonsngoblins 6y ago
  The thing is they did this for everyone in Australia and it isn't as if your average citizen doesn't get this. Our politicians are the ones doing this and it isn't because they are stupid, it's because they have Murdoch's hand so far up their ass you can see his fingernails when they talk. Infantalising us regular people who think what the government is doing is dumb isn't winning them favours
TheCoelacanth 6y ago
It's not like that at all unless you make billions of dollars off of coffee shop recommendations and have a virtual monopoly on coffee shop recommendations.
- vineyardmike 6y ago
  Its exactly like that, except only if you're named in the law, and google and facebook are. Its a horrible law, aimed at what many people think are horrible companies. But its a horrible law regardless.

by graeme 6y ago

mattmanser 6y ago

Exactly what's "dumb" about this? You've got Google, who are now pretty much running the world high street as the quintessential evil rentier, providing little value while extracting virtually all the profits. They are constantly moving the goal posts, which can ruin businesses overnight, with no oversight. Now they have to tell businesses beforehand before they make them bankrupt, so the business at least has a chance to change. Does that sound less dumb and more reasonable if written that way?

username90 6y ago
Remove Google and you'll likely see the open web slowly dying as the remaining big corps reduces its power and moves everything to walled gardens.
- username90 6y ago
  To explain further, Microsoft, Facebook, Apple and Amazon would be happy if the open web died and people had to use apps instead. The only big player with self interest in ensuring the open web continues to exist and be a good user experience is Google.
  - kaba0 6y ago
    Google is the single most dangerous entity when it comes to the open web. Basically the current web is more or less the walled garden of google and it has the power to decide the future of web technologies
    - username90 6y ago
      Right, but remove that Google "garden" and you close the web to many people. It might become more open to some people like you, but the average user likely will stop using it entirely. With that many will just stop maintaining a web page since the users are found elsewhere, and from there it is just going downhill until we are at current linux adoption rates. It will be alive, but only for enthusiasts.
- graeme 6y ago
  Not an idle risk either. Search engines are not a big feature of the net in China for example. At least not relative to the rest of the world.
chipgap98 6y ago
No it really doesn't. > providing little value while extracting virtually all the profits This is a wildly inaccurate statement. Users have every opportunity to visit the news sites directly and yet they choose not to. So clearly search and social media sites are providing value. > They are constantly moving the goal posts, which can ruin businesses overnight We're only talking about news businesses for the purposes of this law. If a news outlet is entirely dependent on google search traffic for their revenue then they don't have a stable business to begin with. This whole law makes the assumption that Google and Facebook are the reason new outlets are losing revenue, but I have yet to see any evidence of that.
- acct776 6y ago
  > Users have every opportunity "But that's how I get to the website, I type it into the Google!"
  - danShumway 6y ago
    If you want to ban Google, then just ban Google. You don't need to set this kind of awful precedent while you're doing it. This weird, "we hate Google, so we're going to pass this massive indirect law that reinterprets fair use, but only applies to them" is pointless and counterproductive. If you don't believe that Google is providing any value, then ban search engines and see how the people of Australia react. But I don't actually believe that the problem people have here is that they think users are forced to look up websites through Google. If that was the problem, then people on both sides would be encouraging Google to pull out of Australia. It's nonsensical to say that indexing websites isn't a valuable service.
    - nwienert 6y ago
      Do you think Google has any strong competition? I think a lot of what’s not being discussed in this thread is that in a competitive market consumers could vote with feet, and the resulting competitive pressure would naturally drive better behaviors, but because that’s lacking governments are now poorly attempting to “fight back”. In a sense, with enough kludgy regulation, eventually there may be enough daylight for a competitor to pop up, and until then people will argue passionately past each other, one libertarian side worried about libertarian things, and the other populist side worried about populist things, etc.
UncleMeat 6y ago
> You've got Google, who are now pretty much running the world high street as the quintessential evil rentier, providing little value while extracting virtually all the profits. They can't be providing little value, because the law here demands that Google link to news articles. If there was no value in the search traffic then news media companies would be fine with "okay, we will simply drop google news and stop linking to news media" but they aren't okay with that.

throwaway2245 6y ago

I am not clever enough to understand this analogy, at all. Why would Google be opening a coffee shop? Could you please translate this analogy into the factual situation, so that I can understand your point of view?

account42 6y ago
In this analogy google is the "friend" and the news site is the coffe shop. Telling you about the coffee shop is linking to it in search results.
- graeme 6y ago
  Actually you are google and your friend is the one searching.
graeme 6y ago
You are google in the analogy. Your friend is someone using google. The coffee shop is the newspaper. Your friend (the searcher) asks you for a cafe recommendation (searches a current event on google) and you tell them the main street cafe is great and you should buy something there (google says the nyt is trustworthy and you should read their page) The australian law says you should pay the cafe to send them customers (says google should pay the nyt to send them readers) It’s really dumb. The cafe wants referrals: why should you pay them? Dunno australian news so I used the NYT as an example.
- mmmeff 6y ago
  Thanks for breaking this down for us. I wouldn’t say it’s dumb on the surface though - I’m kind of curious to what logical extremes this approach to Google’s business model would look like. It definitely is a very different paradigm. I’m wondering how free market forces will influence rankings when business can set prices for referrals.
  - graeme 6y ago
    The market price for a referral is negative. Businesses would normally pay to seek them out. The australian law seeks to flip this on its head and make you pay to recommend, and forbids you from declining to recommend. Right now it only applies to google but the principle is insane. People actively pay google to recommend their sites: it’s the entire basis of google ads!

barneygale 6y ago

Analogies to small businesses do not work because Google distorts the marketplace.

DiggyJohnson 6y ago
This simple point is perhaps the most critical. When a firm can affect radically affect markets across different sectors, the simplicity of argumentation really breaks down.
- graeme 6y ago
  Suppose there was no google and no search engines, but the internet remained. What would happen to news? Would people go back to reading print newspapers. Would people start paying premium for newspaper display ads when such ads do not command a premium on other web sites? No. People would find their news as they do now, on twitter, on reddit, via emailed links, via text messages from friends. In what way has google distorted the news market, separate from the internet itself?
PoignardAzur 6y ago
No, no, no. The internet distorts the marketplace. Google happens to be the wealthiest, most powerful internet companies. Saying "Google distorts the marketplace" hides the fact that none of the internet companies, big or small, would be okay with this. When we invent a refrigerator, the refrigerator companies aren't legally obligated to write checks to ice-diggers for putting them out of work. I don't see why this should be any different.

danShumway 6y ago

To extend off of this, to the point of: > Their spokesperson spoke to users like they were kindergarten children It's very difficult when you're in this position to come up with a way to show why something is so wrong without being at least little cynical or infantilizing. What do you do when someone is arguing something that's wrong on an extremely basic level, but also gets annoyed and feels condescended to whenever you try to explain basic principles to them? If someone sticks their hand on a lit stove, and argues with you about why actually it's good to stick their hand on a lit stove, at some point there isn't a response you can have that isn't going to be infantilizing, at some point you're just going to have to say "hot things make you go ow." If people are angry that Google is insulting them by explaining these basic analogies, then it's harsh, but I kind of feel like I want to say -- don't make mistakes that warrant those analogies. I think it would be a mistake for companies like Google to act like this is a reasonable debate being held between people with honest disagreements about infrastructure. It's not. It's a debate with an industry/government that fundamentally either doesn't understand how the Internet works or doesn't care. People are mad that Google isn't treating a really bad argument like it's a good one. But it's not a good argument, and it doesn't help anyone to pretend that it is or prop it up and treat it like some kind of serious, reasonable discussion.

dragonsngoblins 6y ago
The thing is they did this for everyone in Australia and it isn't as if your average citizen doesn't get this. Our politicians are the ones doing this and it isn't because they are stupid, it's because they have Murdoch's hand so far up their ass you can see his fingernails when they talk. Infantalising us regular people who think what the government is doing is dumb isn't winning them favours

TheCoelacanth 6y ago

It's not like that at all unless you make billions of dollars off of coffee shop recommendations and have a virtual monopoly on coffee shop recommendations.

vineyardmike 6y ago
Its exactly like that, except only if you're named in the law, and google and facebook are. Its a horrible law, aimed at what many people think are horrible companies. But its a horrible law regardless.