4 ms·

There's no imbalance here: newspapers produce content, search engines/social networks surface and link to it. What's happening here is that publishers and thei

There's no imbalance here: newspapers produce content, search engines/social networks surface and link to it. What's happening here is that publishers and their owners somehow figured these pesky internet wiz kids owe them more money.

pyrale 3y ago
> There's no imbalance here: newspapers produce content, search engines/social networks surface and link to it. As evidenced by the average RoI at Google compared to news organisations.
- tempestn 3y ago
  I expect you'll find that discontinuing their news linking service in Canada has very little effect on Google's profitability.
  - pyrale 3y ago
    I agree that Canada should probably have targeted their ad service rather than which link they publish.
- throwuwu 3y ago
  One is the world’s dominant gateway to the internet, the others are a handful of websites.
- amf12 3y ago
  > As evidenced by the average RoI at Google compared to news organisations. Not a good metric. The ROI difference is because of both entities being in different industries, and other things unrelated to the power balance. We can similarly compare the ROI of a news organization and say a restaurant and lament that there is an imbalance of power.
tenpies 3y ago
[flagged]
- pschuegr 3y ago
  Care to provide verifiable details and a timeline for "look like North Korea and China"? Because otherwise this smells like sensationalism to me. Hate is already defined in Canadian law wrt hate crimes, btw, and that predates the Trudeau-monster by decades.
  - osigurdson 3y ago
    With out a verifiable “roadmap to tyranny”, must we necessarily conclude that everything is fine?
    - pschuegr 3y ago
      "Everything is fine" is a position taken by nobody afaict. But if someone is going to make brash claims they better have more than just bluster otherwise they're actively worsening discourse IMO.
      - osigurdson 3y ago
        What claims can be made with current information in your opinion? Is the Trudeau regime , just another run of the mill Canadian government or possibly something more sinister (or at least more corrupt).
        pschuegr 3y ago
        I don't claim to be super-knowledgeable on this topic but IMO the current government is marginally competent and so far I'd say they seem about as corrupt as the Liberals normally are, which is to say: unacceptably. I'm not sure they're any worse than previous iterations, but history will decide. The emergency measures act stuff seems like it was mishandled to me. I find the leadership to be heavy-handed with the virtue signalling, but they're playing to the crowd in the same way that the Conservatives play to the anti-woke crowd - I despise it on both sides. They're doing a whole pile of nothing about healthcare and the housing situation, and I think it'll cost them the next election. In a world with better options I'd never vote Liberal, but since the Conservatives can't seem to come up with a coherent environmental plan to save their lives (and have abandoned what was originally their carbon tax plan because "The Liberals like it so it must be bad"), and the best leader they can come up with was encouraging people to buy crypto right before it crashed, they still seem like the better option. And I say this with a sour taste in my mouth. What's your take?
Majromax 3y ago
> There's no imbalance here: newspapers produce content, search engines/social networks surface and link to it. The imbalance is that as platforms, newspapers cross-subsidize content. Interesting headlines attract readers to the newspaper, but once in hand readers are likely to continue reading the other, less unique articles. (See also why newspapers carry sports scores and comics). An investigative report is by itself a money-loser, but the overall effect on net readership is a win. Aggregators break newspapers as platforms. Google et al provide extra discoverability for a single article, certainly, but then there's no lock-in to keep readers on the (now) website, reading more and seeing other ads. Headline-and-summary view might even result in zero-click satisfaction, denying the outlet even that first impression. This might just be a change that the industry must adapt to, in the same way that television and radio news took over the news-breaking role. However, it is more than a trivial threat to the fundamental business model of a news outlet; it's not (just) superficial greed.
- tensor 3y ago
  Personally I'd be happy to see the ad driven model die. It used to be that people bought newspapers or didn't read them. They still had some ads, granted, but far less intrusive than today's web ads with their colours and animations. I'm huge into supporting good journalism, and think we need some sort of intervention here. But I'm very very strongly opposed to this new law. If news sites want to charge for their content they should put it behind a pay gate. I pay for news, but insultingly they STILL feed me ads. There is no tier that I can pay for that will eliminate the ads. I really don't have much sympathy for them given their refusal to somehow adapt to the times and offer service that users feel valuable enough to pay for.
  - Majromax 3y ago
    > If news sites want to charge for their content they should put it behind a pay gate. This is the 'trade journalism' model. Here, good journalism still exists, but the price is more than most people would afford. People buy trade journals when the news is important, with direct financial implications that justify the cost of admission. General journalism, however, is something close to a public service. It's better in a vague, hand-wavy way to have an educated citizen body that's informed about current affairs, but few individual citizens derive much value from their own knowledge. (This is also why people tend to gravitate towards 'entertaining' news, by some definition. Come for the sports scores, stay for current events.) In this model, the benefit of news is externalized. I benefit when other people are educated. This is a classic market failure, and it suggests that a reader-pays framework will underprovide news.

pyrale 3y ago

> There's no imbalance here: newspapers produce content, search engines/social networks surface and link to it. As evidenced by the average RoI at Google compared to news organisations.

tempestn 3y ago
I expect you'll find that discontinuing their news linking service in Canada has very little effect on Google's profitability.
- pyrale 3y ago
  I agree that Canada should probably have targeted their ad service rather than which link they publish.
throwuwu 3y ago
One is the world’s dominant gateway to the internet, the others are a handful of websites.
amf12 3y ago
> As evidenced by the average RoI at Google compared to news organisations. Not a good metric. The ROI difference is because of both entities being in different industries, and other things unrelated to the power balance. We can similarly compare the ROI of a news organization and say a restaurant and lament that there is an imbalance of power.

tenpies 3y ago

[flagged]

pschuegr 3y ago
Care to provide verifiable details and a timeline for "look like North Korea and China"? Because otherwise this smells like sensationalism to me. Hate is already defined in Canadian law wrt hate crimes, btw, and that predates the Trudeau-monster by decades.
- osigurdson 3y ago
  With out a verifiable “roadmap to tyranny”, must we necessarily conclude that everything is fine?
  - pschuegr 3y ago
    "Everything is fine" is a position taken by nobody afaict. But if someone is going to make brash claims they better have more than just bluster otherwise they're actively worsening discourse IMO.
    - osigurdson 3y ago
      What claims can be made with current information in your opinion? Is the Trudeau regime , just another run of the mill Canadian government or possibly something more sinister (or at least more corrupt).
      - pschuegr 3y ago
        I don't claim to be super-knowledgeable on this topic but IMO the current government is marginally competent and so far I'd say they seem about as corrupt as the Liberals normally are, which is to say: unacceptably. I'm not sure they're any worse than previous iterations, but history will decide. The emergency measures act stuff seems like it was mishandled to me. I find the leadership to be heavy-handed with the virtue signalling, but they're playing to the crowd in the same way that the Conservatives play to the anti-woke crowd - I despise it on both sides. They're doing a whole pile of nothing about healthcare and the housing situation, and I think it'll cost them the next election. In a world with better options I'd never vote Liberal, but since the Conservatives can't seem to come up with a coherent environmental plan to save their lives (and have abandoned what was originally their carbon tax plan because "The Liberals like it so it must be bad"), and the best leader they can come up with was encouraging people to buy crypto right before it crashed, they still seem like the better option. And I say this with a sour taste in my mouth. What's your take?

Majromax 3y ago

> There's no imbalance here: newspapers produce content, search engines/social networks surface and link to it. The imbalance is that as platforms, newspapers cross-subsidize content. Interesting headlines attract readers to the newspaper, but once in hand readers are likely to continue reading the other, less unique articles. (See also why newspapers carry sports scores and comics). An investigative report is by itself a money-loser, but the overall effect on net readership is a win. Aggregators break newspapers as platforms. Google et al provide extra discoverability for a single article, certainly, but then there's no lock-in to keep readers on the (now) website, reading more and seeing other ads. Headline-and-summary view might even result in zero-click satisfaction, denying the outlet even that first impression. This might just be a change that the industry must adapt to, in the same way that television and radio news took over the news-breaking role. However, it is more than a trivial threat to the fundamental business model of a news outlet; it's not (just) superficial greed.

tensor 3y ago
Personally I'd be happy to see the ad driven model die. It used to be that people bought newspapers or didn't read them. They still had some ads, granted, but far less intrusive than today's web ads with their colours and animations. I'm huge into supporting good journalism, and think we need some sort of intervention here. But I'm very very strongly opposed to this new law. If news sites want to charge for their content they should put it behind a pay gate. I pay for news, but insultingly they STILL feed me ads. There is no tier that I can pay for that will eliminate the ads. I really don't have much sympathy for them given their refusal to somehow adapt to the times and offer service that users feel valuable enough to pay for.
- Majromax 3y ago
  > If news sites want to charge for their content they should put it behind a pay gate. This is the 'trade journalism' model. Here, good journalism still exists, but the price is more than most people would afford. People buy trade journals when the news is important, with direct financial implications that justify the cost of admission. General journalism, however, is something close to a public service. It's better in a vague, hand-wavy way to have an educated citizen body that's informed about current affairs, but few individual citizens derive much value from their own knowledge. (This is also why people tend to gravitate towards 'entertaining' news, by some definition. Come for the sports scores, stay for current events.) In this model, the benefit of news is externalized. I benefit when other people are educated. This is a classic market failure, and it suggests that a reader-pays framework will underprovide news.