9 ms·

TechCrunch+ Termination

39 points by donohoe 3y ago

cactusplant7374 3y ago
The "independent" YouTube journalists seem to be doing quite well with YouTube ads and Patreon. Although it seems like most of these people are on the fringe.
- rrix2 3y ago
  the ones i watch also seem like they are all working so hard that they're constantly burning out
  - bookofjoe 3y ago
    Spot-on. That treadmill keeps moving faster and faster and eventually everyone falls off.
    - gunapologist99 3y ago
      similar to building your company on top of someone else's platform.
- jaredwiener 3y ago
  I'd also argue that they aren't actually reporting the news. They are repackaging reporting someone else has already done -- and those people, doing the reporting, are usually the ones struggling economically.
bsimpson 3y ago
This is one of the situations where HN's "no editorialized titles" policy buries the lede. The interesting part of this article is the explanation of TC's business model: low-traffic deep industry coverage to attract high value eyeballs, and high-traffic clickbait to cash them in for ad dollars.
tootie 3y ago
Axios has a good breakdown showing how we may be just past peak subscription: https://www.axios.com/2024/02/06/great-subscription-news-reversal https://www.axios.com/2024/02/06/great-subscription-news-rev... A revenue model based purely on traffic officially died along with The Messenger last week. The pure subscription model lends itself to publishers that are truly "necessary" like industry publications or the few papers of record like NYT and WSJ. Everyone in the middle is now scrambling to build some kind of hybrid model or else just die.
- imzadi 3y ago
  It's too bad we don't have a proper digital currency that's treated like an actual currency and now a get rich quick scheme. I'd happily toss 50 cents (anonymously) to a digital newspaper for today's paper when an article gets my attention, but I'm not going to sign up for a subscription to every paper under the sun.
  - jaredwiener 3y ago
    The problem with this approach is that it incentivizes the incredulous, overhyped, yellow journalism that people (at least claim to) hate. Good journalism takes time, and there are a lot of dead ends. Even entire stories. One personal example -- in a previous point in my life when I worked as TV news producer, I once thought I discovered an incredible example of government over-spending -- airports in the middle of nowhere Alaska built to handle the largest commercial jetliners. But after further digging, I learned that this really made flights to and from Asia safe; a pilot could opt for one of these long runways in an emergency. Suddenly they didn't seem so pointless -- and there was never a story. That's the kind of rabbit hole I would not have been able to go down if my entire paycheck was dependent on maximum eyeballs. Could it have been a story? Yes! Was it? No! Was it something I thought warranted a few hours of investigation? Yes. These various business models all have pros and cons, but ultimately, some form of community investment into media is needed. Whether thats through subscriptions, advertising, donations, or some thing else is still unclear. And of course, on the newsroom side of things, they need to foster the trust that they are looking into things that may turn out to be nothing, but also could be important. We as a society just need to find a way to pay for it.
laborcontract 3y ago
As an aside, TechCrunch is just so obviously The gateway for people who are trying to get into venture capital. I find this type of thing very distasteful.
luxistrash 3y ago
[dead]
vitalychernobyl 3y ago
I think the lead they are burying is the huge decline in the quality of TechCrunch and that it has become the same as any generic tech section, in any generic publication. It used to be my front page - but I don’t bother anymore. The unique articles about startups are gone - replaced by a repackaging of press releases, the optimistic tone of supporting entrepreneurs has been replaced by the cynicism of writers that dislike the companies/technologies/founders they write about, etc. If anything, this article shows many examples of other publications that are successful with just that kind of coverage, while TechCrunch has unfortunately made itself generic.
- gunapologist99 3y ago
  > The unique articles about startups are gone - replaced by a repackaging of press releases, the optimistic tone of supporting entrepreneurs has been replaced by the cynicism of writers that dislike the companies/technologies/founders they write about, etc. You nailed it. That's exactly what it is! Basically wokified PR Newswire and the few startup articles that do exist are boring and written by people who seem to really dislike the very subject of their articles.

39 points by donohoe 3y ago

The "independent" YouTube journalists seem to be doing quite well with YouTube ads and Patreon. Although it seems like most of these people are on the fringe.

rrix2 3y ago
the ones i watch also seem like they are all working so hard that they're constantly burning out
- bookofjoe 3y ago
  Spot-on. That treadmill keeps moving faster and faster and eventually everyone falls off.
  - gunapologist99 3y ago
    similar to building your company on top of someone else's platform.
jaredwiener 3y ago
I'd also argue that they aren't actually reporting the news. They are repackaging reporting someone else has already done -- and those people, doing the reporting, are usually the ones struggling economically.

bsimpson 3y ago

This is one of the situations where HN's "no editorialized titles" policy buries the lede. The interesting part of this article is the explanation of TC's business model: low-traffic deep industry coverage to attract high value eyeballs, and high-traffic clickbait to cash them in for ad dollars.

tootie 3y ago

Axios has a good breakdown showing how we may be just past peak subscription: https://www.axios.com/2024/02/06/great-subscription-news-reversal https://www.axios.com/2024/02/06/great-subscription-news-rev... A revenue model based purely on traffic officially died along with The Messenger last week. The pure subscription model lends itself to publishers that are truly "necessary" like industry publications or the few papers of record like NYT and WSJ. Everyone in the middle is now scrambling to build some kind of hybrid model or else just die.

imzadi 3y ago
It's too bad we don't have a proper digital currency that's treated like an actual currency and now a get rich quick scheme. I'd happily toss 50 cents (anonymously) to a digital newspaper for today's paper when an article gets my attention, but I'm not going to sign up for a subscription to every paper under the sun.
- jaredwiener 3y ago
  The problem with this approach is that it incentivizes the incredulous, overhyped, yellow journalism that people (at least claim to) hate. Good journalism takes time, and there are a lot of dead ends. Even entire stories. One personal example -- in a previous point in my life when I worked as TV news producer, I once thought I discovered an incredible example of government over-spending -- airports in the middle of nowhere Alaska built to handle the largest commercial jetliners. But after further digging, I learned that this really made flights to and from Asia safe; a pilot could opt for one of these long runways in an emergency. Suddenly they didn't seem so pointless -- and there was never a story. That's the kind of rabbit hole I would not have been able to go down if my entire paycheck was dependent on maximum eyeballs. Could it have been a story? Yes! Was it? No! Was it something I thought warranted a few hours of investigation? Yes. These various business models all have pros and cons, but ultimately, some form of community investment into media is needed. Whether thats through subscriptions, advertising, donations, or some thing else is still unclear. And of course, on the newsroom side of things, they need to foster the trust that they are looking into things that may turn out to be nothing, but also could be important. We as a society just need to find a way to pay for it.

laborcontract 3y ago

As an aside, TechCrunch is just so obviously The gateway for people who are trying to get into venture capital. I find this type of thing very distasteful.

luxistrash 3y ago

[dead]

vitalychernobyl 3y ago

I think the lead they are burying is the huge decline in the quality of TechCrunch and that it has become the same as any generic tech section, in any generic publication. It used to be my front page - but I don’t bother anymore. The unique articles about startups are gone - replaced by a repackaging of press releases, the optimistic tone of supporting entrepreneurs has been replaced by the cynicism of writers that dislike the companies/technologies/founders they write about, etc. If anything, this article shows many examples of other publications that are successful with just that kind of coverage, while TechCrunch has unfortunately made itself generic.

gunapologist99 3y ago
> The unique articles about startups are gone - replaced by a repackaging of press releases, the optimistic tone of supporting entrepreneurs has been replaced by the cynicism of writers that dislike the companies/technologies/founders they write about, etc. You nailed it. That's exactly what it is! Basically wokified PR Newswire and the few startup articles that do exist are boring and written by people who seem to really dislike the very subject of their articles.