The assumption behind all of your examples is that the new version is a better replacement for the old version. However, social media sites and search engines t

The assumption behind all of your examples is that the new version is a better replacement for the old version. However, social media sites and search engines typically do not do their own journalism. They provide an effective mechanism for distributing information, but that mechanism adds no value until there is some information worth distributing. So, how much of the reward from people who ultimately receive and benefit from that information should be due to those who did the work to generate it, and how much should be due to those providing distribution services? Historically, being the middleman in these situations has been very lucrative. Most book publishers still take huge cuts while authors receive only a tiny fraction of the cover price from each sale. It's a similar story for traditional record labels, film production companies, academic journals and so on. The Internet has been a great equaliser when it comes to distribution of good quality content, allowing creators to reach their audiences more directly than ever before. The Internet has also shown how much easier it is for potentially interested consumers of new content to find it when it's available in well-known places, which shows that big marketplaces for content do still have value. The question here is really about balance, and whether middleman organisations should still be able to keep as much of the pie as they used to.