3 ms·

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 hav

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 3y 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 3y 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.
    - amscanne 3y ago
      If publishers aren’t paying, what did you mean by this, exactly: > Publishers' relevance on, say, Google, relies partly on sponsored contents. They pay Google for this. I understand that Google has optimized to avoid the user clicking away. Obviously, this has been done to keep eyeballs and revenue but it is also arguably in the user’s interest as they accomplish their goals faster. The logical response for this is not to force Google to pay for listing and summarizing links, but to evolve your own business model. Say by moving towards richer, more thoughtful content and analysis that can’t be trivially summarized and might even support a non-ad-based model, such as subscriptions or donations. (I pay for quite a few subscriptions that host content like this.) The basic news business has obviously become increasingly commoditized, and I don’t think anything Google does is going to change this. The Wikipedia example is actually supporting the viability of good content being a defense for commoditization, not the argument that Google needs to pay content creators to survive. I don’t think there’s any evidence to support the idea that Google summarizing in a one box has harmed Wikipedia, as the Wikimedia foundation has continued to substantially grow its revenue every year and is at all time highs. Arguably, this is because they host content that is sufficiently rich that they are bound to have a decent click-through rate; whereas many news publishers are basically rewriting AP releases with little value add. > 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. It is a strange proposition that if someone doesn’t like the only restaurant in town then it has a moral obligation to close its doors. It’s not like you have an obligation to go there; in this analogy consider opening a new restaurant as trying to do direct ad selling, but you can just as easily “cook at home” by shifting your business model. It might be different if the business was critical and had total monopoly (e.g. water, power) but I’m not sure this holds here. Just as the restaurant is not required to cater to your specific tastes, I don’t think Google should be required to subsidize a specific publishing business model. It feels like a very narrow form of digital Luddism. Now maybe they are somewhat parasitic in this case, and would be smart to figure an more mutually beneficial arrangement (just as the restaurant would be smart to cater broadly to local tastes), but I wouldn’t go so far as to say “should” or expect any mandate to do so.

manuelabeledo 3y 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 3y 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.
  - amscanne 3y ago
    If publishers aren’t paying, what did you mean by this, exactly: > Publishers' relevance on, say, Google, relies partly on sponsored contents. They pay Google for this. I understand that Google has optimized to avoid the user clicking away. Obviously, this has been done to keep eyeballs and revenue but it is also arguably in the user’s interest as they accomplish their goals faster. The logical response for this is not to force Google to pay for listing and summarizing links, but to evolve your own business model. Say by moving towards richer, more thoughtful content and analysis that can’t be trivially summarized and might even support a non-ad-based model, such as subscriptions or donations. (I pay for quite a few subscriptions that host content like this.) The basic news business has obviously become increasingly commoditized, and I don’t think anything Google does is going to change this. The Wikipedia example is actually supporting the viability of good content being a defense for commoditization, not the argument that Google needs to pay content creators to survive. I don’t think there’s any evidence to support the idea that Google summarizing in a one box has harmed Wikipedia, as the Wikimedia foundation has continued to substantially grow its revenue every year and is at all time highs. Arguably, this is because they host content that is sufficiently rich that they are bound to have a decent click-through rate; whereas many news publishers are basically rewriting AP releases with little value add. > 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. It is a strange proposition that if someone doesn’t like the only restaurant in town then it has a moral obligation to close its doors. It’s not like you have an obligation to go there; in this analogy consider opening a new restaurant as trying to do direct ad selling, but you can just as easily “cook at home” by shifting your business model. It might be different if the business was critical and had total monopoly (e.g. water, power) but I’m not sure this holds here. Just as the restaurant is not required to cater to your specific tastes, I don’t think Google should be required to subsidize a specific publishing business model. It feels like a very narrow form of digital Luddism. Now maybe they are somewhat parasitic in this case, and would be smart to figure an more mutually beneficial arrangement (just as the restaurant would be smart to cater broadly to local tastes), but I wouldn’t go so far as to say “should” or expect any mandate to do so.