4 ms·

It’s very simple. The “news” makes very little impact on the average person’s daily life. Unless you are a high level political operative or a day trader, the

by imgabe 4y ago

It’s very simple. The “news” makes very little impact on the average person’s daily life. Unless you are a high level political operative or a day trader, the news makes absolutely no difference in how you go about your day. Oh, so-and-so was caught in a scandal with such-and-such? Neat. Anyway, I’ve got to get to work and then pick up the kids and cook dinner and whatnot. 99% of the news is completely unimportant, but they breathlessly report it like it’s life and death. For most people, it’s a momentary diversion, and if it went away it would make no difference at all.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
rdtwo 4y ago
Exactly, content that’s not actionable is purely entertainment and not as valuable or possibly valuable at all
someotherperson 4y ago
This is an extremely important point to make. There are plenty of paid news websites (specifically ones focused on oil markets in the MENA region aimed at traders, some that review court cases aimed at lawyers) and those have no problems at all getting subscribers exactly for the reasons you've specified.
- bombcar 4y ago
  There's more of these than people realize, and some are highly specialized - few subscribers focusing on a very narrow market. Often they come around because hiring an analyst to track a specific thing is more expensive than having that same analyst do the research for 5-10 companies/groups interested in it.
martin_drapeau 4y ago
In addition, the internet reduced the cost of information to near 0. News is just information.
- bombcar 4y ago
  This is another big thing people forget - often if you "wanted to know what happened" you bought the latest newspaper. I still remember spending hours reading the details on the Loma Prieta earthquake in the paper - printed on green paper with the amazing "line graphic" art showing how and why the viaduct collapsed, etc. Now if you're interested in something that is "breaking" you can find live footage and even expert discussion, for free, on the internet.
- LeifCarrotson 4y ago
  The specifics are worse than that! It did little to make the cost of producing information cheaper; that still requires a human to analyze data, interview relevant people, and synthesize a useful article. It did reduce the incremental cost of delivering that information to even closer to zero. Yes, serving a kilobyte of data is slightly cheaper than the paper and ink to put a thousand characters on a newspaper, but neither problem was actually all that expensive within living memory. The major problem is that it increased the value of being that information provider to something significantly greater than the cost of distributing it. Reader attention and reader data can be sold for more than it costs to push a page to that reader, pushing the information content to the side and inverting the newspaper provider -> information consumer relationship into an attention selling consumer -> attention buying advertiser relationship, incentivizing clickbait, advertorials, and listicles. This new format is more economically powerful, and like an invasive species, it out-competes less greedy formats into extinction.
bombcar 4y ago
Exactly. Once you realize that "news" is a now a really bad spelling of "entertainment" and come to the next step to see that it's entertainment you don't like (as news is almost universally "bad" and makes you feel unhappy) then you realize why paying for self-inflicted torture doesn't rank high on people's list of needs. There's an exception to this - if the "news" is designed to inform you how much better than everyone else you are - this "news" can be useful and people do pay for it. It's surprising how many subscription new services appear much different if you view them as "subscriber life choice reinforcement and encouragement."
lghh 4y ago
And if it is something that's affecting you, you already know it and there's a good chance you could speak to it better than the news itself can.
xattt 4y ago
It’s getting to a point where reading paced higher-quality articles that have no direct intent at a visceral reaction for clicks has an effect on my mental health. I also noticed that news and trends I read about in “higher-order” publications tend to trickle down and have an impact on my local area on a timescale of about 5 years. This, I would gladly pay for.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
colinmhayes 4y ago
I think it's even simpler than this. People aren't willing to pay for news because google/facebook have made it trivial to find free copy cat news articles. Why pay for something that is free?
jameshart 4y ago
Counterpoint: people used to pay for news. Households would subscribe to daily or weekly newspaper deliveries and monthly magazine delivery; people would buy newspapers from stands on their way into the office in the morning. I grew up in the UK in a household that subscribed to a daily local newspaper, a Sunday national, a weekly TV guide magazine, and several monthly magazines. This in a country where we also had free over the air access to BBC nightly television news and local and national news radio. Did news used to have more impact on people's lives? Or are people now simply able to pick up the same ambient awareness they desire about the state of the world (or at least the subjective impression of something that feels like it) from free internet sources?
- imgabe 4y ago
  I am also old enough to remember print newspapers. They used to serve a number of important purposes. Classifieds: want to buy or sell a car? get a job? Buy a house? This was the place to do it. Not actually going to do it but just want to peruse what’s available? This is the only option. Comics: laughs, puzzles every day. No Internet, no where else to get this. Traffic, weather: these might actually make a difference in your day Yes, before the Internet, newspapers actually did things that were useful
  - rdtwo 4y ago
    Yeah but mostly I just enjoyed reading them as stories of far away places. Now there are almost no reporters who are truly in touch with what’s happening because it’s just event summaries from Ap
- lapcat 4y ago
  > Or are people now simply able to pick up the same ambient awareness they desire about the state of the world (or at least the subjective impression of something that feels like it) from free internet sources? This. People find some value in the news and are willing to pay for it when there's no other option, but they don't value the news enough to pay for it when the free internet option does an acceptable job of satisfying their curiosity. You mention TV and radio, but the critical difference is that you can read paper or online news on your own time, whereas TV and radio have their own schedules.
dr_orpheus 4y ago
Agreed, especially for the typical "big" news outlets. I do subscribe to my local newspaper because it does make more of an impact on my life. News about changes in our school district or a proposal to make a new bike underpass affect my life significantly more than anything else. The only other news that I regularly look at is related to my job (aerospace industry). "News articles" (most of them are actually just native advertising) about new products/technologies people are developing, what contracts other companies have won, and company acquisitions are relevant to my job.

by imgabe 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

rdtwo 4y ago

Exactly, content that’s not actionable is purely entertainment and not as valuable or possibly valuable at all

someotherperson 4y ago

This is an extremely important point to make. There are plenty of paid news websites (specifically ones focused on oil markets in the MENA region aimed at traders, some that review court cases aimed at lawyers) and those have no problems at all getting subscribers exactly for the reasons you've specified.

bombcar 4y ago
There's more of these than people realize, and some are highly specialized - few subscribers focusing on a very narrow market. Often they come around because hiring an analyst to track a specific thing is more expensive than having that same analyst do the research for 5-10 companies/groups interested in it.

martin_drapeau 4y ago

In addition, the internet reduced the cost of information to near 0. News is just information.

bombcar 4y ago
This is another big thing people forget - often if you "wanted to know what happened" you bought the latest newspaper. I still remember spending hours reading the details on the Loma Prieta earthquake in the paper - printed on green paper with the amazing "line graphic" art showing how and why the viaduct collapsed, etc. Now if you're interested in something that is "breaking" you can find live footage and even expert discussion, for free, on the internet.
LeifCarrotson 4y ago
The specifics are worse than that! It did little to make the cost of producing information cheaper; that still requires a human to analyze data, interview relevant people, and synthesize a useful article. It did reduce the incremental cost of delivering that information to even closer to zero. Yes, serving a kilobyte of data is slightly cheaper than the paper and ink to put a thousand characters on a newspaper, but neither problem was actually all that expensive within living memory. The major problem is that it increased the value of being that information provider to something significantly greater than the cost of distributing it. Reader attention and reader data can be sold for more than it costs to push a page to that reader, pushing the information content to the side and inverting the newspaper provider -> information consumer relationship into an attention selling consumer -> attention buying advertiser relationship, incentivizing clickbait, advertorials, and listicles. This new format is more economically powerful, and like an invasive species, it out-competes less greedy formats into extinction.

bombcar 4y ago

Exactly. Once you realize that "news" is a now a really bad spelling of "entertainment" and come to the next step to see that it's entertainment you don't like (as news is almost universally "bad" and makes you feel unhappy) then you realize why paying for self-inflicted torture doesn't rank high on people's list of needs. There's an exception to this - if the "news" is designed to inform you how much better than everyone else you are - this "news" can be useful and people do pay for it. It's surprising how many subscription new services appear much different if you view them as "subscriber life choice reinforcement and encouragement."

lghh 4y ago

And if it is something that's affecting you, you already know it and there's a good chance you could speak to it better than the news itself can.

xattt 4y ago

It’s getting to a point where reading paced higher-quality articles that have no direct intent at a visceral reaction for clicks has an effect on my mental health. I also noticed that news and trends I read about in “higher-order” publications tend to trickle down and have an impact on my local area on a timescale of about 5 years. This, I would gladly pay for.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

colinmhayes 4y ago

I think it's even simpler than this. People aren't willing to pay for news because google/facebook have made it trivial to find free copy cat news articles. Why pay for something that is free?

jameshart 4y ago

Counterpoint: people used to pay for news. Households would subscribe to daily or weekly newspaper deliveries and monthly magazine delivery; people would buy newspapers from stands on their way into the office in the morning. I grew up in the UK in a household that subscribed to a daily local newspaper, a Sunday national, a weekly TV guide magazine, and several monthly magazines. This in a country where we also had free over the air access to BBC nightly television news and local and national news radio. Did news used to have more impact on people's lives? Or are people now simply able to pick up the same ambient awareness they desire about the state of the world (or at least the subjective impression of something that feels like it) from free internet sources?

imgabe 4y ago
I am also old enough to remember print newspapers. They used to serve a number of important purposes. Classifieds: want to buy or sell a car? get a job? Buy a house? This was the place to do it. Not actually going to do it but just want to peruse what’s available? This is the only option. Comics: laughs, puzzles every day. No Internet, no where else to get this. Traffic, weather: these might actually make a difference in your day Yes, before the Internet, newspapers actually did things that were useful
- rdtwo 4y ago
  Yeah but mostly I just enjoyed reading them as stories of far away places. Now there are almost no reporters who are truly in touch with what’s happening because it’s just event summaries from Ap
lapcat 4y ago
> Or are people now simply able to pick up the same ambient awareness they desire about the state of the world (or at least the subjective impression of something that feels like it) from free internet sources? This. People find some value in the news and are willing to pay for it when there's no other option, but they don't value the news enough to pay for it when the free internet option does an acceptable job of satisfying their curiosity. You mention TV and radio, but the critical difference is that you can read paper or online news on your own time, whereas TV and radio have their own schedules.

dr_orpheus 4y ago

Agreed, especially for the typical "big" news outlets. I do subscribe to my local newspaper because it does make more of an impact on my life. News about changes in our school district or a proposal to make a new bike underpass affect my life significantly more than anything else. The only other news that I regularly look at is related to my job (aerospace industry). "News articles" (most of them are actually just native advertising) about new products/technologies people are developing, what contracts other companies have won, and company acquisitions are relevant to my job.