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Controversial opinion: more news outlets should be run by benevolent billionaires who can afford to spend their own money indefinitely to keep the outlet runnin

Controversial opinion: more news outlets should be run by benevolent billionaires who can afford to spend their own money indefinitely to keep the outlet running without resorting to ads and paywalls.

NovemberWhiskey 5y ago
Even the ones that are, don't (c.f. WaPo)
DevKoala 5y ago
The news can change the perspective of individuals. If only “benevolent” billionaires can maintain news sites, then they can also dictate the perception of real world events by individuals. It is too much power. Competition pushes news sites to adhere to some level of truth.
dangus 5y ago
If billionaires were benevolent they wouldn't be billionaires.
- Victerius 5y ago
  Bill Gates?
  - dangus 5y ago
    Not everyone shares that opinion, including myself. This article does a great job of explaining some reasons why: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/04/bill-gates-foundation-philanthropy-microsoft https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/04/bill-gates-foundation-phi... Something not a lot of people think about a lot is that having a billion dollars is so wildly greater in scale than being a simple multi-millionaire. You have to have 999 million dollars before you have your first billion. If I make $100k, and I buy a banana for $1, that would be like if someone making $1 million bought a banana for $10. For a billionaire, that would be a $10,000 banana. That means if you're Elon Musk, my yearly salary is like half a banana. What I'm ultimately getting at is that, to be a billionaire, you have to hoard wealth away from other people in a dramatic way. These philanthropic organizations are packed with money obtained from customers, and I think it's important to remember where they got that money in the first place, and what alternative activities that money would have engaged in if it wasn't hoarded in the first place. E.g., how much money does my city have to pay Microsoft for Windows licenses that could have gone toward education, health, and infrastructure? How much less would Windows licenses cost if Microsoft had never been a monopoly and had serious competitors?
    - rfd4sgmk8u 5y ago
      And while this is a nice analogy, it doesn't quite work out in the real world. What is important is liquidity of the assets. And things like capital gains taxes if one was to liquidate. Having most of your wealth in your companies stock is not equivalent to the $10k banana. Its probably more like the $500 banana and a big stack of toilet paper. Absolute dollar value of wealth is a trick of the misinformed socialists like to play because they want to redistribute. Once things get into the tens of millions of dollars its no longer about absolute value, its cost of capital, leverage, interest rates and liquidity.
      - dangus 5y ago
        Obviously, I'm aware that billionaires can't just liquidate their net worth. I'm just using the analogy to show just how much more wealthy a billionaire is than a millionaire. For example, millionaires on TV news or playing football for your favorite NFL teams are like minimum wage employees when you consider their relative wealth compared to the owners of those organizations. The point of the analogy is to show just how much the wealthiest of the wealthy really are, to show that these oligarchs are powerful on the level of a state, on the level of millions of regular people. You used the boogeyman word, "socialists." In my opinion, capitalist education teaches us to fear "wealth redistribution," but it's not even really about wealth redistribution. It's about excess wealth inequality prevention. When a small group of people become wildly more wealthy than everyone else, even more wildly wealthy than major business owners and CEOs, they become unelected oligarchs that control the state. So, if your main argument is "socialism bad," I'd encourage you to think of it more along the lines of wealth and power inequality. I think oligarchs want to distort this message and make it sound like "socialists" are trying to force everyone to make the exact same wage, or increase taxes on regular people, or enact a "nanny state." Not a lot of people want to end capitalism entirely, they just don't want there to be people out there who are so wealthy and powerful that they can control governments without being fairly and freely elected. They want a relatively level playing field where the best ideas win, not the ideas that come from the people with outsized influence.
    - cercatrova 5y ago
      > to be a billionaire, you have to hoard wealth away from other people in a dramatic way. Why would it be so? Wealth is not a zero sum game.
  - asteroidp 5y ago
    He was a total prick and engaged in blatantly illegal practice to get his billions Just because he has whitewashed his bio doesn't mean he is a good guy
adamc 5y ago
I am deeply suspicious of "shoulds" on other people. Maybe normal human beings should pay enough that newspapers can survive.
- Victerius 5y ago
  What if they don't? I agree in principle, but I struggle to see what business model can allow newspapers to survive in the digital era.
  - forgotmyoldacc 5y ago
    NYTimes stock has gone up 200% over the last 5 years. I think they're doing fine.

NovemberWhiskey 5y ago

Even the ones that are, don't (c.f. WaPo)

DevKoala 5y ago

The news can change the perspective of individuals. If only “benevolent” billionaires can maintain news sites, then they can also dictate the perception of real world events by individuals. It is too much power. Competition pushes news sites to adhere to some level of truth.

dangus 5y ago

If billionaires were benevolent they wouldn't be billionaires.

Victerius 5y ago
Bill Gates?
- dangus 5y ago
  Not everyone shares that opinion, including myself. This article does a great job of explaining some reasons why: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/04/bill-gates-foundation-philanthropy-microsoft https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/04/bill-gates-foundation-phi... Something not a lot of people think about a lot is that having a billion dollars is so wildly greater in scale than being a simple multi-millionaire. You have to have 999 million dollars before you have your first billion. If I make $100k, and I buy a banana for $1, that would be like if someone making $1 million bought a banana for $10. For a billionaire, that would be a $10,000 banana. That means if you're Elon Musk, my yearly salary is like half a banana. What I'm ultimately getting at is that, to be a billionaire, you have to hoard wealth away from other people in a dramatic way. These philanthropic organizations are packed with money obtained from customers, and I think it's important to remember where they got that money in the first place, and what alternative activities that money would have engaged in if it wasn't hoarded in the first place. E.g., how much money does my city have to pay Microsoft for Windows licenses that could have gone toward education, health, and infrastructure? How much less would Windows licenses cost if Microsoft had never been a monopoly and had serious competitors?
  - rfd4sgmk8u 5y ago
    And while this is a nice analogy, it doesn't quite work out in the real world. What is important is liquidity of the assets. And things like capital gains taxes if one was to liquidate. Having most of your wealth in your companies stock is not equivalent to the $10k banana. Its probably more like the $500 banana and a big stack of toilet paper. Absolute dollar value of wealth is a trick of the misinformed socialists like to play because they want to redistribute. Once things get into the tens of millions of dollars its no longer about absolute value, its cost of capital, leverage, interest rates and liquidity.
    - dangus 5y ago
      Obviously, I'm aware that billionaires can't just liquidate their net worth. I'm just using the analogy to show just how much more wealthy a billionaire is than a millionaire. For example, millionaires on TV news or playing football for your favorite NFL teams are like minimum wage employees when you consider their relative wealth compared to the owners of those organizations. The point of the analogy is to show just how much the wealthiest of the wealthy really are, to show that these oligarchs are powerful on the level of a state, on the level of millions of regular people. You used the boogeyman word, "socialists." In my opinion, capitalist education teaches us to fear "wealth redistribution," but it's not even really about wealth redistribution. It's about excess wealth inequality prevention. When a small group of people become wildly more wealthy than everyone else, even more wildly wealthy than major business owners and CEOs, they become unelected oligarchs that control the state. So, if your main argument is "socialism bad," I'd encourage you to think of it more along the lines of wealth and power inequality. I think oligarchs want to distort this message and make it sound like "socialists" are trying to force everyone to make the exact same wage, or increase taxes on regular people, or enact a "nanny state." Not a lot of people want to end capitalism entirely, they just don't want there to be people out there who are so wealthy and powerful that they can control governments without being fairly and freely elected. They want a relatively level playing field where the best ideas win, not the ideas that come from the people with outsized influence.
  - cercatrova 5y ago
    > to be a billionaire, you have to hoard wealth away from other people in a dramatic way. Why would it be so? Wealth is not a zero sum game.
- asteroidp 5y ago
  He was a total prick and engaged in blatantly illegal practice to get his billions Just because he has whitewashed his bio doesn't mean he is a good guy

adamc 5y ago

I am deeply suspicious of "shoulds" on other people. Maybe normal human beings should pay enough that newspapers can survive.

Victerius 5y ago
What if they don't? I agree in principle, but I struggle to see what business model can allow newspapers to survive in the digital era.
- forgotmyoldacc 5y ago
  NYTimes stock has gone up 200% over the last 5 years. I think they're doing fine.