6 ms·

It’s a pretty scathing omen for the ad run internet that this is the part that shuts down while their flaming dumpsterfire of a content mill lives on.

iamerroragent 4y ago
Content mill runs rage content all day too. Unfortunately those get eyes and thus revenue. More a comment on us as a species than anything else. On an individual to individual basis we might recognize bad content meant to feed off of our base emotional instincts versus content meant for accuracy and to inform. However collectively it appears there's more of us that rather get sucked into the rage content than try for objective or accurate reporting. This mirrors the transition of television News from not needed to be profitable to needing to be profitable. Look at the success of cable news.
- spacemadness 4y ago
  Our ids tend to run wild on the internet, so it’s not surprising. It is extremely disappointing that there is always someone willing to take advantage, but that is the story of humanity I suppose. My hope is somehow we are capable of creating something better than this.
- klodolph 4y ago
  > More a comment on us as a species than anything else. I think this is less of a comment about us as a species and more a comment about the economic systems that we have in place. Our economic systems used to support journalism.
  - Tyrek 4y ago
    Our economic systems used to be very bad at scaling. They also used to be very bad at incentivizing value-add economic activity. Which system do you want?
    - bcrosby95 4y ago
      I don't want society to develop in the most economically advanced driveling pile of shit that ever existed.
  - walleeee 4y ago
    "it's just human nature" can be a powerfully self-fulfilling prophecy We ought to exercise what agency we have in shaping social systems, but not only this, we need to remind ourselves regularly that we do have agency in order to exercise it
    - JohnFen 4y ago
      "The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any." -- Alice Walker
- joshspankit 4y ago
  Is that just going to disappear when AI is so good at milling rage content that no publishers can compete? Why would someone choose to wade through a listicle when they can get their rage unfiltered and on tap?
next_xibalba 4y ago
> the ad run internet What is the alternative? And I do mean an alternative that would incentivize and yield the same creative explosion we've seen with the web over the last 30 years.
- notacoward 4y ago
  I challenge your axiom that there has been an ad-fueled creative explosion. Yes, there has been an explosion in volume and perhaps in drama, but creativity specifically? Above and beyond what already existed in free, OSS, or subscription based media? A return to other models might mean less profits, fewer ultra-wealthy founders and VCs, but I'm not at all convinced that it would lead to less creativity.
  - dageshi 4y ago
    There were a huge amounts of niche sites written to answer questions on niche topics. All with the aim of being helpful enough to get google to send them traffic they could monetise with ads. Many of these sites were peoples hobbies which they could further explore or even dedicate themselves to based on the income from their website. This wouldn't have happened without ads, no other alternative has ever been found that got the author of a website paid while not directly charging the reader. The web with ads is immensely more useful than the web without, hell without ads there probably wouldn't even be a search engine to find anything on the web and without a search engine nobody would be able to find anything of any use.
    - notacoward 4y ago
      > All with the aim of being helpful enough to get google to send them traffic All? That's such a ridiculous generalization that it's practically a lie. If that's all you remember, then I suggest that your experience has been too short and/or limited. Before Google even existed there were tons of sites that were there for reasons other than ads. (I've been involved with the internet since before it became public BTW, plus Usenet and other things before that, so I have some perspective.) Even after Google became the ad behemoth it is today, plenty of sites flourished while having nothing to do with it. I had my own blog from 2000 until last year, moderately well known in some circles, but neither I nor most of the other bloggers I interacted with had anything to do with ads. There were forums without ads, e-commerce sites without ads (not counting their own), etc. The current situation, where everything seems to be a walled garden or infested with ads, is pretty recent ... and even now, there are plenty of sites that decline to play that game. Like the one we're having this conversation on.
mysterydip 4y ago
The reason will shock you!
- geephroh 4y ago
  [golf clap]
rsynnott 4y ago
To some extent, proper journalism, especially investigative journalism, was always a sort of loss-making luxury even for traditional media. You don’t want your ad beside the story breaking Watergate, because people might associate you with Watergate. You want it with the fluff; sports or gossip or soft local news or whatever depending on demographic. The main change is that web media seems far more comfortable than traditional with being _just_ fluff, so the journalism is increasingly endangered.

iamerroragent 4y ago

Content mill runs rage content all day too. Unfortunately those get eyes and thus revenue. More a comment on us as a species than anything else. On an individual to individual basis we might recognize bad content meant to feed off of our base emotional instincts versus content meant for accuracy and to inform. However collectively it appears there's more of us that rather get sucked into the rage content than try for objective or accurate reporting. This mirrors the transition of television News from not needed to be profitable to needing to be profitable. Look at the success of cable news.

spacemadness 4y ago
Our ids tend to run wild on the internet, so it’s not surprising. It is extremely disappointing that there is always someone willing to take advantage, but that is the story of humanity I suppose. My hope is somehow we are capable of creating something better than this.
klodolph 4y ago
> More a comment on us as a species than anything else. I think this is less of a comment about us as a species and more a comment about the economic systems that we have in place. Our economic systems used to support journalism.
- Tyrek 4y ago
  Our economic systems used to be very bad at scaling. They also used to be very bad at incentivizing value-add economic activity. Which system do you want?
  - bcrosby95 4y ago
    I don't want society to develop in the most economically advanced driveling pile of shit that ever existed.
- walleeee 4y ago
  "it's just human nature" can be a powerfully self-fulfilling prophecy We ought to exercise what agency we have in shaping social systems, but not only this, we need to remind ourselves regularly that we do have agency in order to exercise it
  - JohnFen 4y ago
    "The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any." -- Alice Walker
joshspankit 4y ago
Is that just going to disappear when AI is so good at milling rage content that no publishers can compete? Why would someone choose to wade through a listicle when they can get their rage unfiltered and on tap?

next_xibalba 4y ago

> the ad run internet What is the alternative? And I do mean an alternative that would incentivize and yield the same creative explosion we've seen with the web over the last 30 years.

notacoward 4y ago
I challenge your axiom that there has been an ad-fueled creative explosion. Yes, there has been an explosion in volume and perhaps in drama, but creativity specifically? Above and beyond what already existed in free, OSS, or subscription based media? A return to other models might mean less profits, fewer ultra-wealthy founders and VCs, but I'm not at all convinced that it would lead to less creativity.
- dageshi 4y ago
  There were a huge amounts of niche sites written to answer questions on niche topics. All with the aim of being helpful enough to get google to send them traffic they could monetise with ads. Many of these sites were peoples hobbies which they could further explore or even dedicate themselves to based on the income from their website. This wouldn't have happened without ads, no other alternative has ever been found that got the author of a website paid while not directly charging the reader. The web with ads is immensely more useful than the web without, hell without ads there probably wouldn't even be a search engine to find anything on the web and without a search engine nobody would be able to find anything of any use.
  - notacoward 4y ago
    > All with the aim of being helpful enough to get google to send them traffic All? That's such a ridiculous generalization that it's practically a lie. If that's all you remember, then I suggest that your experience has been too short and/or limited. Before Google even existed there were tons of sites that were there for reasons other than ads. (I've been involved with the internet since before it became public BTW, plus Usenet and other things before that, so I have some perspective.) Even after Google became the ad behemoth it is today, plenty of sites flourished while having nothing to do with it. I had my own blog from 2000 until last year, moderately well known in some circles, but neither I nor most of the other bloggers I interacted with had anything to do with ads. There were forums without ads, e-commerce sites without ads (not counting their own), etc. The current situation, where everything seems to be a walled garden or infested with ads, is pretty recent ... and even now, there are plenty of sites that decline to play that game. Like the one we're having this conversation on.

mysterydip 4y ago

The reason will shock you!

geephroh 4y ago
[golf clap]

rsynnott 4y ago

To some extent, proper journalism, especially investigative journalism, was always a sort of loss-making luxury even for traditional media. You don’t want your ad beside the story breaking Watergate, because people might associate you with Watergate. You want it with the fluff; sports or gossip or soft local news or whatever depending on demographic. The main change is that web media seems far more comfortable than traditional with being _just_ fluff, so the journalism is increasingly endangered.