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I want to note that, independently of what this bill says, publishers have never complained about their treatment in other platforms owned by either of these tw

I want to note that, independently of what this bill says, publishers have never complained about their treatment in other platforms owned by either of these two companies, such as YouTube. Reason being, they get paid for publishing content, and Google and Meta make money off it. Regardless of what most people believe about social networks and search engines "helping" these media outlets be known, reality is that they don't do it from the kindness of their hearts. Google and Meta profit from linking and publishing these contents. Large companies like to frame this kind of stuff as a slippery slope and an anti-consumer move, because it is a more sympathetic approach than just saying "we want to keep making money and not spending a dime". And I get it, news outlets also want money. But again, this is not an apocalyptic scenario where consumers get screwed over news corporations greed, it is just resistance from even larger corporations to pay a share of their profits to content creators.

dmix 4y ago
> it is just resistance from even larger corporations to pay a share of their profits to content creators. It's also largely about who has pull in government to reroute $$ from one corporation to another. CBC type outlets have plenty of backers in Canadian gov that pull this sort of thing off. Similar to the Canadian film industry being propped up by government. The costs to consumers isn't always just they have to pay more or not. It's about what content they won't get (legal) access to. Similar to the difference between chilling speech vs censorship. There's so many small products/services you don't get as Canadians, that are freely available in the US and other countries, often for tenuous long-forgotten reasons.
duringmath 4y ago
Unlike hosting content on third party platforms publishers get to make money off the traffic social media/search platforms send their way this bill is about having it both ways and bastardizing web linking while they're at it.
- manuelabeledo 4y ago
  That's not how it works. Publishers' relevance on, say, Google, relies partly on sponsored contents. They pay Google for this. Publisher' income online is driven, by a very large margin, by advertisers. The largest online advertisement platforms are owned by both Facebook and Google. They essentially get a 68% cut from either of them. 32% goes to Facebook/Google. Publishers relying on Google for content search get 51% of the ad revenue generated by it. 49% goes to Google. One can see why Google and Facebook are in business with media publishers. Now, Google News (the app) has 142 million active users. Google does not generate any of the content, and since most users only read headlines and skip the contents [0], this means that Google is making a boatload of money off contents they don't own, for people who aren't interested in going to the source. That is the problem here. And if Google or Meta were honest about it, they would just remove all the news links and shut down their news sites. Instead, they make a fuss about how unjust is for users to not have access to news through their platforms, and how news outlets benefit from their augmented outreach, like neither Meta nor Google are making money off it. [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2014/03/19/americans-read-headlines-and-not-much-else/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2014/03/19/am...
  - amscanne 4y ago
    > And if Google or Meta were honest about it, they would just remove all the news links and shut down their news sites. Instead, they make a fuss about how unjust is for users to not have access to news through their platforms, and how news outlets benefit from their augmented outreach, like neither Meta nor Google are making money off it. You claim that publishers are paying Google and Meta to be in these aggregators. But the aggregators are the problem and should spontaneously shut down? If the model sucks, publishers should stop paying. The argument you’re making is basically equivalent to saying that Chipotle burritos are making me fat, therefore Chipotle should close all their locations instead of you know, me taking responsibility by not eating there.
    - manuelabeledo 3y ago
      Publishers pay to be high up in Search. They don't to be in News, and they don't get paid for this one either. Also, stop paying on a platform that controls 90% of the global search market is not really a smart move. I feel like you haven't used Google recently. They have compartmentalized certain results, and created products around them, e.g. news, travel, places. They also have summarized some results and added them as short answers to common questions related to search terms, which means that you don't leave Google's page for content created and hosted somewhere else. The most obvious case is where you search for, say, a historical person, and instead of giving you the link to Wikipedia, it shows literal Wikipedia content as a sort of widget on the right column. How is any of this fair to content creators? > The argument you’re making is basically equivalent to saying that Chipotle burritos are making me fat, therefore Chipotle should close all their locations instead of you know, me taking responsibility by not eating there. They should be if Chipotle was virtually the only restaurant in town, and the only way for you to get food, which is essentially what Google is in the search space.

dmix 4y ago

> it is just resistance from even larger corporations to pay a share of their profits to content creators. It's also largely about who has pull in government to reroute $$ from one corporation to another. CBC type outlets have plenty of backers in Canadian gov that pull this sort of thing off. Similar to the Canadian film industry being propped up by government. The costs to consumers isn't always just they have to pay more or not. It's about what content they won't get (legal) access to. Similar to the difference between chilling speech vs censorship. There's so many small products/services you don't get as Canadians, that are freely available in the US and other countries, often for tenuous long-forgotten reasons.

duringmath 4y ago

Unlike hosting content on third party platforms publishers get to make money off the traffic social media/search platforms send their way this bill is about having it both ways and bastardizing web linking while they're at it.

manuelabeledo 4y ago
That's not how it works. Publishers' relevance on, say, Google, relies partly on sponsored contents. They pay Google for this. Publisher' income online is driven, by a very large margin, by advertisers. The largest online advertisement platforms are owned by both Facebook and Google. They essentially get a 68% cut from either of them. 32% goes to Facebook/Google. Publishers relying on Google for content search get 51% of the ad revenue generated by it. 49% goes to Google. One can see why Google and Facebook are in business with media publishers. Now, Google News (the app) has 142 million active users. Google does not generate any of the content, and since most users only read headlines and skip the contents [0], this means that Google is making a boatload of money off contents they don't own, for people who aren't interested in going to the source. That is the problem here. And if Google or Meta were honest about it, they would just remove all the news links and shut down their news sites. Instead, they make a fuss about how unjust is for users to not have access to news through their platforms, and how news outlets benefit from their augmented outreach, like neither Meta nor Google are making money off it. [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2014/03/19/americans-read-headlines-and-not-much-else/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2014/03/19/am...
- amscanne 4y ago
  > And if Google or Meta were honest about it, they would just remove all the news links and shut down their news sites. Instead, they make a fuss about how unjust is for users to not have access to news through their platforms, and how news outlets benefit from their augmented outreach, like neither Meta nor Google are making money off it. You claim that publishers are paying Google and Meta to be in these aggregators. But the aggregators are the problem and should spontaneously shut down? If the model sucks, publishers should stop paying. The argument you’re making is basically equivalent to saying that Chipotle burritos are making me fat, therefore Chipotle should close all their locations instead of you know, me taking responsibility by not eating there.
  - manuelabeledo 3y ago
    Publishers pay to be high up in Search. They don't to be in News, and they don't get paid for this one either. Also, stop paying on a platform that controls 90% of the global search market is not really a smart move. I feel like you haven't used Google recently. They have compartmentalized certain results, and created products around them, e.g. news, travel, places. They also have summarized some results and added them as short answers to common questions related to search terms, which means that you don't leave Google's page for content created and hosted somewhere else. The most obvious case is where you search for, say, a historical person, and instead of giving you the link to Wikipedia, it shows literal Wikipedia content as a sort of widget on the right column. How is any of this fair to content creators? > The argument you’re making is basically equivalent to saying that Chipotle burritos are making me fat, therefore Chipotle should close all their locations instead of you know, me taking responsibility by not eating there. They should be if Chipotle was virtually the only restaurant in town, and the only way for you to get food, which is essentially what Google is in the search space.