> What exactly is wrong with the notion of having technology companies pay for links? The links and content are a form of intellectual property that is collecti

> What exactly is wrong with the notion of having technology companies pay for links? The links and content are a form of intellectual property that is collectively produced by users and firms in a nation, and a law like the one passed in Australia effectively just functions as a form of collective bargaining over that information with Google or Facebook. A link is how the web has decided to say "go here if you want to learn more". It doesn't make any sense to me to make people pay to tell you where you can go find out more about something. It becomes a tax on the transfer of knowledge, which is the worst tax idea I have ever heard in my life. It also creates perverse incentives. If Google and Facebook have to pay to show you the news, then their obvious incentive is to either not show you news, or make you uninterested in the news. Do you really want a world where Google and Facebook are motivated to convince everyone that the news is a lie, or that it's not interesting, or that the best sources of news are tiny conspiracy theory outlets that are too small to actually have to pay for news? Also consider that most people use the news as part of their decision on how they vote. Having "the most powerful and profitable technology companies" in the world motivated to mess around with something that directly feeds into the voting process sounds like something that will inevitably lead to a crisis. They helped create the Capital invasion on accident. I shudder to think what will happen when they really start tinkering with the news. > Why do we need to accept the logic that the most powerful and profitable technology companies in the world get to utilise our data for free? Because knowledge should always be free. No one should ever be too poor to learn. I accept that sometimes other people will do things I don't love with that knowledge. > Why do we need to accept the logic that the most powerful and profitable technology companies in the world get to utilise our data for free? Also, I can see at least 3 other potential solutions in that sentence that don't involve changing the word "free". "powerful" - use some of your anti-monopoly laws then. They're meant to break up companies that become too powerful. "profitable" - cool, tax them then. That seems to be the route France is going, and closing down the loopholes where they shift money around. "world" - if they're that bad, then ban them in your country. I'd rather live in a world without the conveniences of Google than a world where someone can be too poor to know what's going on in the world.