4 ms·

> Yet, news publishers’ advertising revenue has significantly declined. Cry me a river. Our local newspaper (the Oxford Mail) is published by Newsquest, the U

> Yet, news publishers’ advertising revenue has significantly declined. Cry me a river. Our local newspaper (the Oxford Mail) is published by Newsquest, the UK subsidiary of Gannett. It is dreck. Pure unreadable dreck. All the 2008-era clickbait techniques you can think of; churnalism that does little more than repeat press releases; stories taken straight from Facebook "Spotted" groups or Twitter with no added value whatsoever; all surrounded by more animated ads than you thought it was possible to cram onto one single page. This isn't atypical - pretty much every town in Britain has had its newspaper gobbled up by Gannett or one of two other giants (Reach and National World). Local journalism is basically dead now. I am absolutely no fan of Google, but Gannett deserves to go out of business and leave the oxygen for genuine local reporting.

2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
> I am absolutely no fan of Google, but Gannett deserves to go out of business and leave the oxygen for genuine local reporting. Maybe if local newspapers made more money from advertising...
- earthboundkid 3y ago
  The problem with local news is multifaceted, but three of the major problems are: - The money moved away from publishers towards ad platforms - The publishers all got bought by asshole private equity guys who are deliberately crashing the papers as a cash out strategy - Wider distribution in the absence of strong anti-trust enforcement rewards conglomeration So, the situation today is that every small local paper, which was a perfectly profitable business in the 80s is now a two page rag owned by a national chain that has planned out how to maximize profit between now and when their last subscriber dies of old age, at which point it will default and screw their creditors.
  - 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
    The "asshole" private equity guys are buying failing papers and making them fail faster. Lack of ad revenue could be why they are failing in the first place and looking to sell. Fantastic article about it: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/11/alden-global-capital-killing-americas-newspapers/620171/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/11/alden-g...
lapcat 3y ago
The perfect victim is never going to sue Google, because the perfect victim doesn't have the resources to sue Google. It's just like with Epic Games vs. Apple: a lot of people hate Epic, which is fine and justified, but who else is going to sue Apple? I'm an App Store developer, but I can't afford to sue Apple. Some local newspaper is never going to sue Google (or Gannett for that matter).
- Barrin92 3y ago
  > a lot of people hate Epic, which is fine and justified Do they? genuine question, I'm mostly out of the loop. They seem to have built a genuine economy and ecosystem around their products and people love Fortnite.
  - klipklop 3y ago
    They do. Mostly due to associating with Tencent.
  - throwaway7679 3y ago
    Kids may love Fortnite. Their parents love it less when Epic steals hundreds of millions of dollars from them [1] Players tend to focus their complaints on Epic's "customer service", and use of exclusive titles in their store, with somewhat less attention going to the invasive DRM/spyware aspects of EGS, EOS, and EAC [2] [1] https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/03/ftc-finalizes-order-requiring-fortnite-maker-epic-games-pay-245-million-tricking-users-making https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/03/... [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckepic/ https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckepic/
  - tpxl 3y ago
    There is a lot of salt regarding exclusives. Darkest Dungeon 2 was exclusive to Epic during the beta period and people were _furious_ on Steam. Metro: Last Light had preorders on Steam and then went Epic exclusive a few days before release, having sold hundreds of copies on Steam. Steam spanked them and they honored the preorders, but didn't sell new copies until the exclusive was done. This is the reason I never bought the game, even though I love the series and bought the books based on the first game. I am also against exclusives because I find them anti-user. I don't think Steam ever did exclusives (there are games that are only released on Steam, but not because of any exclusive deals, but because the developer simply never released them anywhere else).

2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago

> I am absolutely no fan of Google, but Gannett deserves to go out of business and leave the oxygen for genuine local reporting. Maybe if local newspapers made more money from advertising...

earthboundkid 3y ago
The problem with local news is multifaceted, but three of the major problems are: - The money moved away from publishers towards ad platforms - The publishers all got bought by asshole private equity guys who are deliberately crashing the papers as a cash out strategy - Wider distribution in the absence of strong anti-trust enforcement rewards conglomeration So, the situation today is that every small local paper, which was a perfectly profitable business in the 80s is now a two page rag owned by a national chain that has planned out how to maximize profit between now and when their last subscriber dies of old age, at which point it will default and screw their creditors.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
  The "asshole" private equity guys are buying failing papers and making them fail faster. Lack of ad revenue could be why they are failing in the first place and looking to sell. Fantastic article about it: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/11/alden-global-capital-killing-americas-newspapers/620171/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/11/alden-g...

lapcat 3y ago

The perfect victim is never going to sue Google, because the perfect victim doesn't have the resources to sue Google. It's just like with Epic Games vs. Apple: a lot of people hate Epic, which is fine and justified, but who else is going to sue Apple? I'm an App Store developer, but I can't afford to sue Apple. Some local newspaper is never going to sue Google (or Gannett for that matter).

Barrin92 3y ago
> a lot of people hate Epic, which is fine and justified Do they? genuine question, I'm mostly out of the loop. They seem to have built a genuine economy and ecosystem around their products and people love Fortnite.
- klipklop 3y ago
  They do. Mostly due to associating with Tencent.
- throwaway7679 3y ago
  Kids may love Fortnite. Their parents love it less when Epic steals hundreds of millions of dollars from them [1] Players tend to focus their complaints on Epic's "customer service", and use of exclusive titles in their store, with somewhat less attention going to the invasive DRM/spyware aspects of EGS, EOS, and EAC [2] [1] https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/03/ftc-finalizes-order-requiring-fortnite-maker-epic-games-pay-245-million-tricking-users-making https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/03/... [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckepic/ https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckepic/
- tpxl 3y ago
  There is a lot of salt regarding exclusives. Darkest Dungeon 2 was exclusive to Epic during the beta period and people were _furious_ on Steam. Metro: Last Light had preorders on Steam and then went Epic exclusive a few days before release, having sold hundreds of copies on Steam. Steam spanked them and they honored the preorders, but didn't sell new copies until the exclusive was done. This is the reason I never bought the game, even though I love the series and bought the books based on the first game. I am also against exclusives because I find them anti-user. I don't think Steam ever did exclusives (there are games that are only released on Steam, but not because of any exclusive deals, but because the developer simply never released them anywhere else).