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Venture backed or publicly traded media companies are pretty much doomed to go bad after a while. They start out offering a useful service but once the pressur
by spaetzleesser 5y ago
Venture backed or publicly traded media companies are pretty much doomed to go bad after a while. They start out offering a useful service but once the pressure of eternal growth comes they are are forced to do shadier and shadier things. There is just no way around it. The only thing that could work is a private company like Craigslist that is OK with relatively steady profits without needing to grow. But in today’s environment it probably would be very hard to start something like Craigslist, succeed and stay independent.
- reaperducer 5y agopublicly traded media companies are pretty much doomed to go bad after a while This may be more true than you know. I observed this when I worked in television. ABC News' decline started when ABC was bought by Capitol Cities. NBC News' decline started when NBC was bought by General Electric. CBS News' decline started when CBS was bought by Westinghouse. The death of local radio news happened after each of the local news radio stations were bought by Jacor or some other enormous out-of-town corporation that answers to its investors, instead of the public it was meant to serve.
- effingwewt 5y agoI don't remember when but at some point taking on VC capital became like a death-knell to me. Was definitely before reddit did, I remember thinking that was the beginning of the end. Makes me terrified for the housing market.