17 ms·

Vice website is shutting down

836 points by colinprince 3y ago

devilsAdv0cate 3y ago
[dead]
narrator 3y ago
[flagged]
- TMWNN 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - harrisonpage 3y ago
    yawn
- tehjoker 3y ago
  Isn't one of the founders of VICE a founder of the Proud Boys? https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/06/the-secret-history-of-gavin-mcinnes https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/06/the-secret-history-o...
  - wahnfrieden 3y ago
    Yes and he's the one who originated the "Dos and Don'ts" column OP loved
  - defrost 3y ago
    Yeah, but, he changed . . . In the 1990s, McInnes was hardly a far-right menace. He was a tree-planting vegetarian, a druggy anarchist, and a self-described “dogmatic feminist.” Some people who knew him then still regard him as one of the funniest people they’ve ever met. He counted comedians such as David Cross and Sarah Silverman as friends, both of whom contributed articles to Vice. [ ... ] But over time McInnes accelerated his drift to the political fringe.
    - LAC-Tech 3y ago
      He was a tree-planting vegetarian, a druggy anarchist, and a self-described “dogmatic feminist ... But over time McInnes accelerated his drift to the political fringe. Sounds like he just moved from one fringe to another.
windowshopping 3y ago
Wow. I have read a lot of articles there without ever paying a dime. So I'm disappointed but not altogether surprised.
chc4 3y ago
Time to reset the "days since MBAs ran a company into the ground" ticker, I guess?
- dylan604 3y ago
  Has it ever reached 1?
  - happytiger 3y ago
    Once. In 1983. And management theory has been forever trying to do it again.
    - fernandopj 3y ago
      Do elaborate!
    - kome 3y ago
      hmm, what?
      - Geisterde 3y ago
        I think this is a thing in certain industries. Game development for instance; I feel like the more money a publisher has, the worse the result, and I would argue that one of the factors is an increase in corporate types. There hasnt been so much the implosion of those companies yet, but id wager in the next 5-10 years they will have to majorly trim down or perish. The corporate influence is too constricting for creative works. I imagine there are many businesses where MBAs make sense, and that any large company needs them.
- refurb 3y ago
  LOL. Vice was going into the toilet regardless of who ran it.
- andy800 3y ago
  Vice only survived as long as it did because some MBAs insisted that if they wanted to do cool stuff (documentaries, TV channel) they needed to do something else on the side that actually generated revenue. The majority of Vice's revenue came via highly un-sexy "creative services" (i.e. producing TV commercials) and other advertising media.
The28thDuck 3y ago
They ran out of dangerous places to do designer drugs. In all honesty, Vice was a cool outlet for out-there stories for teens and adults alike. Shame it’s shutting down but then again I never supported it.
- antegamisou 3y ago
  My thoughts as well. It was pretty strong the first few years and rapidly declined in quality for the last 5 or so.
  - ametrau 3y ago
    At some point they stopped being fun and challenging and just became weird and angry. As much as I hate to say it (millenial), it's probably due to the age of millenials and genx now. They should have pivoted a different way--more in line with the changing life stage of the readership.
    - hackernewds 3y ago
      are you implying they swapped to catering to gen Z? why didn't that continue to work, when it did will millennials at that age
      - cal85 3y ago
        My sense is fewer Zoomers are interested in the grimy/underworld/rave vibe compared to Millennials and Gen X. It’s all the same to them. My theory is that when Millennials were growing up there was still a strong ‘default culture’ that helped sustain a thriving counter-culture. One could move decisively between the two when bored/frazzled. Zoomers have grown up flailing around in a devolved soup of ideas. Everything’s edgy so nothing is.
        rsynnott 3y ago
        I would just like to point out that members/former of every counterculture back to at least the 50s have said this about the younger generation; it’s almost a cliche.
rvz 3y ago
Well Vice.com destroyed themselves after the founder left and was taken over. Ever since, they ran themselves into the ground and raised so much money all for what? Only for their website to be shut down after being bankrupt. All faster than their own deranged Twitter / X collapse predictions. Nothing of value was lost.
- TMWNN 3y ago
  >Nothing of value was lost. Place your bets on what will die next. HuffPo? Vox? Salon (which I know had a near-death experience a few years ago; I doubt its financial health is any better now)?
  - RajT88 3y ago
    HuffPo is so clickbaity and ad filled I cannot imagine it going anywhere.
    - homefree 3y ago
      Salon is also awful - it’ll be nice when they’re done
      - transcriptase 3y ago
        They’ll be fine as long as Trump wins the next election. The ad revenue from having even one of your daily “orange man bad” articles hit the top of a dozen massive subreddits a few times a week can sustain any business.
        SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
        I think you were downvoted by people who so viscerally can’t stand the idea of Trump winning they need to silence anyone that might dare to say it… which entirely proves your point market that a media outlet can sustain on.
  - rvz 3y ago
johnsutor 3y ago
Was more into their YouTube / Video content to be honest
mlekoszek 3y ago
Is this actually as dramatic as the title implies? The email says "we will no longer publish content on vice.com." That doesn't necessarily mean they'll pull vice.com offline. Either way, between this and Pitchfork winding down, it really feels like we're entering new times culturally.
- coffeebeqn 3y ago
  Were either site still culturally relevant? Both seem about a decade into their decline
  - mlekoszek 3y ago
    Yeah -- you're right, this has been a long time coming. I just think the closures and layoffs these past few months have finally closed the chapter on the style of journalism and tastemaking they built.
  - OhioMan2943 3y ago
    but there isn't any cohesive, structured, insightful cultural commentary replacing them- we're in murky waters and people i'm sure people will feel the squeeze of an uncreative culture even more than they are already
- shortformblog 3y ago
  The rumor yesterday was that they were. Employees had gotten a heads-up to back up their content because it may not be online forever. (It’s my toot.)
system2 3y ago
Why are they still hiring? https://vice.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/Vice_External_Career_Site https://vice.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/Vice_External_Caree...
- avery17 3y ago
  Vice isn't going out of business. Did you even read the title?
  - mkl 3y ago
    The title is "Vice website is shutting down", and this job page refers to vice.com. It's the screenshotted text that says they will "transition to a studio model" and still exist, but no longer publish on vice.com. It also says they will be eliminating several hundred positions, so the hiring question seems appropriate.
  - system2 3y ago
    I went to vice.com and clicked on ABOUT then hiring for VICE.com. So I think it is fair to assume it is for vice.com. https://www.vice.com/en/page/vice-about https://www.vice.com/en/page/vice-about
- bufo 3y ago
  It takes a while to take down job posts. Everyone likely learned the decision recently. I don’t think the employees who are going to be laid off care about updating the job posts at the moment…
seliopou 3y ago
The post is written by a guy named Ernie that writes a newsletter called Tedium, which I highly recommend. Today’s newsletter about BuzzFeed, which came out earlier this afternoon, alluded to big news coming out of Vice soon. Didn’t know it was gonna be this big, but in any case he called it.
- zilti 3y ago
  That Vice would shut down is known for weeks at this point though
nextaccountic 3y ago
It makes no sense to not let the site online in an archived form, for the posterity It wouldn't even be a significant cost and ads would recoup it anyway There should be a way to donate a website to the Internet Archive so that they run an online archive on it, basically keeping the site frozen forever (rather than relying on the Wayback Machine which has worse UX)
- paxys 3y ago
  Who said they are not letting the site stay online?
  - Scoundreller 3y ago
    it says "we will no longer publish content on vice.com" which is ambiguous. If I stop posting new content, have I stopped publishing? Or is it if I stop serving, then I've stopped publishing?
    - paxys 3y ago
      It is not ambiguous. They are no longer publishing new content. They have not said they will unpublish existing content.
      - mingus88 3y ago
        “New” is not in the original post. Saying “we will no longer publish content” could very well mean they are taking down the site; thus it is no longer published I think it’s very likely that this is what’s going to happen because even a static archive site is going to cost money and dilute their new social brand Perhaps they’ll repost their old stuff on their new channels but it will nevertheless suck for old timers like me that refuse to use social media
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
  - 3y ago
therealfiona 3y ago
After they stopped doing the Vice Guide to Travel, I stopped watching.
ChrisArchitect 3y ago
[dupe] Any official source on this yet? Guess not since they won't post it on their website /s https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39475405 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39475405 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39471154 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39471154 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39474224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39474224
MangoCoffee 3y ago
Shane Smith cashed out at Vice's highest...gotta say either he knows this is how he going to exit or he knows the industry (digital media)
- 1905 3y ago
  [dead]
- gaws 3y ago
  It's both.
MuffinFlavored 3y ago
They have 18,000,000 subscribers on YouTube... how can they not have enough money to host a website and pay some people to create content?... RIP Epicly Later'd?
- gjsman-1000 3y ago
  YouTube payouts have hit rock bottom lately - which has, notably, been part of the reason for so many creator retirements. Ironic, considering the ad blocker ban was supposed to fix this.
  - majani 3y ago
    Once YouTube started monetizing videos that weren't in the partner program it was always going to be downhill from there. The supply of ad-eligible videos probably doubled overnight
- paxys 3y ago
  18M YouTube subscribers can sustain a decent business, sure, but not one with 3000+ employees.
  - resolutebat 3y ago
    What? Why on earth does Vice have 3000 employees? I thought publishing companies long since switched to having all their content creators freelance. Edit: I thought OP was exaggerating, but nope, per this random website they have/had at least 2,300. https://rocketreach.co/vice-media-profile_b5c6f6cef42e0cd9 https://rocketreach.co/vice-media-profile_b5c6f6cef42e0cd9
    - doctor_eval 3y ago
      That alone explains what’s happening.
    - sfgunn 3y ago
      [flagged]
1letterunixname 3y ago
Once they got funding and on HBO they rested on their behinds, spent too much money, wasted effort on bullshit while neglecting hard journalism, and believed they "arrived." Paper billionaires checked out, some sold out, and their value slowly went to zero because the owners failed to insist on leadership and culture continuity. Sad af and a total waste. Never get complacent.
- transcriptase 3y ago
  When you go from: “our employee spent 3 weeks alone filming inside the islamic state” to “what’s up with taylor swift fans and cowboy hats?” … it might be time to jump ship before the layoffs.
  - morkalork 3y ago
    From secretly filming inside North Korea to daily content marketing listicles.
mellosouls 3y ago
Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/media/2024/02/22/vice-media-shuts-down-layoffs/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/media/2024/02/22/vice-m... Former digital-media darling Vice to end website, lay off hundreds
kbos87 3y ago
I think this says more about the cost relative to the value of running a website in 2024 than anything else.
nomilk 3y ago
Nowhere near as dramatic as the headline implies. The tl;dr (slightly paraphrased) > It is no longer cost-effective for us to distribute content the way we've done previously. Moving forward we will partner with established media companies to distribute our content as we fully transition to a studio model. As part of this we will no longer publish content on vice.com, putting more emphasis on our social channels Vice is still in business, but its content distribution is changing from website to a combination of publishing via larger media companies and social media.
- bufo 3y ago
  “Vice website is shutting down” is 100% accurate. Note that they will also lay off most of their staff.
  - nomilk 3y ago
    Yup. The parent comment disambiguates between vice the website and vice generally. Only the website is shutting down; vice the org will still be around.
paxys 3y ago
Reminder that Vice Media filed for bankruptcy and was acquired by a private equity firm last year. Nothing that is happening now should be surprising. The company's brand and content library are being squeezed for any remaining profits and its carcass will then be tossed away.
pengaru 3y ago
Just another step in the ongoing collapse of Vice Media https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vice_Media#Bankruptcy_and_sale_(2023%E2%80%93present) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vice_Media#Bankruptcy_and_sale...
stalfosknight 3y ago
Why do executives have to talk like that? It’s so off-putting.
morkalork 3y ago
Pour one out for Motherboard, they had some solid scoops in their time. A real rarity for media covering hacking and cyber crime.
- poisonborz 3y ago
  Former staff started a new site called 404 Media
geor9e 3y ago
Full text: Dear Vice Team, As we navigate the ever-evolving business landscape, we need to adapt and best align our strategies to be more competitive in the long term. After careful consideration and discussion with the board, we have decided to make some fundamental changes to our strategic vision at Vice. We create and produce outstanding original content true to the Vice brand. However, it is no longer cost-effective for us to distribute our digital content the way we have done previously. Moving forward, we will look to partner with established media companies to distribute our digital content, including news, on their global platforms, as we fully transition to a studio model. As part of this shift, we will no longer publish content on vice.com, instead putting more emphasis on our social channels as we accelerate our discussions with partners to take our content to where it will be viewed most broadly. Separately, Refinery 29 will continue to operate as a standalone diversified digital publishing business, creating engaging, social first content. As you know, we are in advanced discussions to sell this business, and we are continuing with that process. We expect to announce more on that in the coming weeks. With this strategic shift comes the need to realign our resources and streamline our overall operations at Vice. Regrettably, this means that we will be reducing our workforce, eliminating several hundred positions. This decision was not made lightly, and I understand the significant impact it will have on those affected. Employees who will be affected will notified about next steps early next week, consistent with local laws and practices. I know that saying goodbye to our valued colleagues is difficult and feels overwhelming, but this is the best path forward for Vice as we position the company for long-term creative and financial success. Our financial partners are supportive and have agreed to invest in this operating model going forward. We will emerge stronger and more resilient as we embark on this new phase of our journey. Thank you for your continued dedication to Vice and support during this time of transition. Together, I am confident that we will overcome any challenges and achieve our shared goals. Bruce
- dmix 3y ago
  The key bit: > As part of this shift, we will no longer publish content on vice.com @dang can we change the headline to "Vice will no longer publish content on vice.com" instead of implying the website is shutting down? They will obviously keep it around for existing SEO ads and as a brand to sell ads for their other content on other platforms.
nisa 3y ago
I'm thankful for the Russian roulette series. Showed the brutality of war in Ukraine in 2014. Some scenes I won't forget. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLw613M86o5o7a0FGlPRdt47xiDiggbNsZ&si=VSUW1qwYQFirweJi https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLw613M86o5o7a0FGlPRdt47xi...
- captainkrtek 3y ago
  I recall watching this series as each episode dropped, truly memorable journalism showing history in the making. Also emailed with Simon Ostrovsky years later, very nice guy.
- sva_ 3y ago
  The old documentaries where Shane Smith himself went down to all kinds of dangerous places were really sick.
  - andy800 3y ago
    For a brief time, their HBO series was essentially a blueprint for a 21st-century 60 Minutes (which long ago became a hollow shell of its former self).
accrual 3y ago
Bummer. Vice felt like real media that could be trusted by way of the weird/outlandaish ways they conducted themselves.
- sfgunn 3y ago
  That's why their propaganda was so successful.
jp57 3y ago
People still don't realize how many things from the last fifteen years were LIRPs. Low interest rate phenomena doomed the moment investors can get a halfway-decent yield from fixed-income investments.
- DiscourseFan 3y ago
  Its odd to think that both Silicon Valley and Vice were from the same phenomenon, but it does track (radical entrepreneurial libertarian "world-changing" businesses). But yeah, the whole neoliberal environment just produced a lot of bullshit in the end (in the developed countries). But I don't think, fortunately, the reaction to neoliberalism is going to stymy creativity at all, I think many are ready to embrace a new kind of economy.
  - FredPret 3y ago
    Silicon Valley predates low interest rates by decades, and the tsunami of money it generates helped to create an environment where low interest rates for long periods were even possible
    - AlexandrB 3y ago
      This doesn't make sense to me. Low interest rates are possible when inflation is not out of control. Don't you need a money sink instead of a money source to make low interest rates possible for long periods? In a way that could still be SV's doing though. Garbage companies like Juicero were able to absorb capital from the "real" economy to keep inflation from rising.
      - tmnvix 3y ago
        > Low interest rates are possible when inflation is not out of control. Not to be pedantic, but it really depends on what you mean by inflation. If you only consider CPI then sure - maybe you're right - but in my opinion we've had out of control asset price inflation together with falling interest rates since around the time of the GFC. I'd go so far as to say it's been the defining feature of western economies over that period. Basically badly implemented quantitative easing.
vonjuice 3y ago
And they've yet to release season 3 of Nirvanna the Band the Show. Unacceptable.
lamp_book 3y ago
Inside North Korea is a classic: https://video.vice.com/en_us/video/vice-guide-to-north-korea/56815b6132382b833c2230ad https://video.vice.com/en_us/video/vice-guide-to-north-korea...
- WarOnPrivacy 3y ago
  > (link to Part 1) tl;dr = Vice Travel Guide site has a half-hearted vibe going on. The function decay felt like it might have started some years before VC. I watched Inside NK - it's a good as you say. And then I tried to find the link to Part 2. 'Tried' because the vid doesn't auto-advance to it and pt2 isn't among the handful of videos that can be found thru navigation or searching from that page. I did find it on Google. Also part 3. Also other offerings that Vice's internal navigation didn't lead me to. Included in that last was a likable followup series, VG's to NK Labor Camps (in Siberia) https://video.vice.com/en_us/video/north-korean-labor-camps-part-17/566841374fe425b03b5fce50 https://video.vice.com/en_us/video/north-korean-labor-camps-... However, I suspect Vice doesn't care if anyone ever finds these classics - and hasn't cared for a while.
GypsyKing716 3y ago
Nobody really cares about Vice, because of the politic that just didn't make sense anymore. They stopped making good content like a decade ago.
- chaosbolt 3y ago
  -In mid-August 2013, Rupert Murdoch's 21st Century Fox invested US$70 million in Vice Media, resulting in a 5% stake. -In August 2014, A&E Networks, a television group jointly owned by The Walt Disney Company and Hearst Corporation, made a US$250-million investment in Vice Media for an ownership stake of 10%. -In November and December 2015, Disney made two additional individual investments of US$200 million totalling $400 million. -In June 2017, Vice secured a $450 million investment from private-equity firm TPG Capital to increase spending on scripted programming and ongoing international expansion. -Disney acquired Fox's stake in Vice when its acquisition of 21st Century Fox completed in March 2019. -On 3 May 2019, Vice Media announced that it raised $250 million in debt from George Soros and other investors. -Vice Media formally filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, as part of a possible sale to a consortium of lenders including Fortress Investment Group, which will, alongside Soros Fund Management and Monroe Capital, invest $225 million as a credit bid for nearly all of its assets. Ok so they used to be honest, then got investments from big media companies, hedge funds and banks, and they stopped being honest, then were driven to bankrupcy and acquired by the usual hedge funds who will probably just turn them into another propaganda (which they had already become a decade ago) cog in the media machine.
  - hnbad 3y ago
    Propaganda for what?
    - nicky0 3y ago
      If you don’t already know, you’re the target of it.
    - brvsft 3y ago
      Pronouns Bio coyly pretends he doesn't know what Vice stands for.
localghost02 3y ago
Following the news from Pitchfork (absorbed by GQ and with layoffs) as well, this doesn't bode well for the future of written journalism and web publications
- Solvency 3y ago
  Dude. The future of all content is now in the hands of GPU farmhands (AI brokers). Have you SEEN Sora? 2030 the media world will be unrecognizable.
1-6 3y ago
I think it’s another victim of YouTube. I liked VICE’s content in the early days but it couldn’t really compete with all the content produced by individuals who were closer to the epicenter of conflict. Let it be.
asimpleusecase 3y ago
My guess is they will go AI generated content. Will pull the content of the website to use and style guide for the AI and prevent anyone else from training AI on their past content. Also I wonder if the lawsuit from New York Times against OpenAI has any impact. I could see new Vice owners try the same thing if New York Times were successful. But also, OpenAI defence is that they did not train on NYT archive but content that was quoting NYT. If I remember correctly VICE had a lot of NYT content that was heavily quoted. Maybe pulling all the content saves them from getting into endless wrangles in the future.
- kristjansson 3y ago
  Why would anyone want AI generated content from Vice, the brand known for direct, novel, firsthand reporting from relatively unknown/inaccessible places? Why would anyone want to read what an LLM thinks North Korea is like? For that matter why do we think anyone will want to read an LLM’s take on anything that has to be grounded in a reality that wasn’t part of its training data?
  - Devasta 3y ago
    They don't need the viewer to read the article, just need them to open the article and view ads.
andrewryanatx 3y ago
[dead]
bijutoha 3y ago
Then what is it? https://www.vice.com/en https://www.vice.com/en
- hk__2 3y ago
  Read the article; they are not shutting down.
sigmonsays 3y ago
the internet is turning into a big turd of information it will probably be 50% ai generated garbage and 50% social rants in 10 years
- hnbad 3y ago
  If Twitter is representative of that future, 50% of those social rants will also be ai generated.
noomen 3y ago
[dead]
meindnoch 3y ago
Venezuela's transgender ketamine dealers are mourning.
- WFHRenaissance 3y ago
  Vice got super activisty toward the end - obviously there is a place for that sort of content but mainly I watched Vice so I could see nerdy white guys in strange places doing weird shit
aaron695 3y ago
[dead]
jacurtis 3y ago
Its sad that Vice feels like they can only gain value from social media and YouTube. I feel like the best part of the internet is dying (good written detailed content), but the worst part of it is surviving and thriving: social media (short lived, low quality, clickbaity, dopamine chasing content).
- arsome 3y ago
  I think YouTube is the counter argument to this - long form content from passionate people has taken off pretty good there. Perhaps it's just me, but it seriously makes the rest of social media look like an absolute trashfire by comparison.
  - Scoundreller 3y ago
    Sorta. YouTube is kinda anti-monetization of your content unless you get 1000 subscribers, which is kinda hard if you don’t do consistent topic or are entertaining. If you’re a grouchy mechanic and do boring videos of exactly how to do brakes on every car, that’s incredibly useful, but not subscribeable (unless your grouchiness becomes a meme). I feel bad for the one guy that did 1 perfect video on how to fix&overhaul my garage door opener. But he won’t see a cent even as YouTube puts ads on it anyway and takes 100%. Meanwhile on blogs etc with Adsense, you could monetize immediately. That’s how i started out and figured out what worked. Went from $2/month, to 20 to 200 to 2000 for a while. Lots of random articles. Didn’t care to become a “platform” (new users that visit and never come back are the best ad-clickers).
    - glfharris 3y ago
      I suppose that's where things like tip jars work quite well. To reward useful but otherwise niche content.
      - fleischhauf 3y ago
        is tip jars an actual software solutions for tipping? I'm wondering what is most commonly used for tipping websites/content?
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gnarbarian 3y ago
hooray
gigatexal 3y ago
Hopefully the internet archive can save Vice from itself and archive it for posterity. This sucks. This sucks. I really liked Vice for their journalism. Shame there’s basically no money in it these days. I hope the journalists go somewhere else and are able to do the same awesome work.
jameyk 3y ago
[flagged]
- cookiemonsieur 3y ago
  Yup. I remember all the lies they used to put out back in the day in relation to the conlifct in syria.
  - seattle_spring 3y ago
    The assertion that the “non-woke” media outlets do not lie or misrepresent information gave me a good hearty morning chuckle.
    - cookiemonsieur 3y ago
      They do. But pretending that somehow, a terrorist organisation would allow a bunch of woke leftists into their compounds to film is also equally hilarious. Not to mention all their so called "reporting" on poor neighbourhoods in LA/Chicago, specifically designed to portray black kids as quasi-animals, but I digress. Good riddance to vice.
- lobito14 3y ago
  Exactly my thoughts
LNSY 3y ago
Saudi Arabia wants their stories about them spiked. Will Vice be on archive.org?
swatson741 3y ago
I personally never visited their website to begin with so this choice makes sense to me. It feels like thats true for most mainstream journalism sites. Very curious if this is a sign of things to come or just unique to Vice.
truemotive 3y ago
I was watching Dark Side of the Ring on Vice TV the other day (a vice of mine by chance), and despite the fact that their eponymous block bold letter design language was intact during the promo commercials for upcoming shows, it was clearly all for Vice-adjacent syndicated TV shows that felt more at home on HGTV or worse. I was pretty shocked and figured they just suffered the same fate of The Learning Channel, may it forever rest in peace.
- adfm 3y ago
  The current top story on vice.com, “Inside the Christian Nationalist Church Where Proud Boys Go to be Baptized,” is a bit thick. “Meaner, faster, and more dynamic.” Ha! David Carr had their number off the bat: https://youtu.be/iLmkec_4Rfo?si=ZlXSnFajg81RNcRM https://youtu.be/iLmkec_4Rfo?si=ZlXSnFajg81RNcRM
Slava_Propanei 3y ago
[dead]
tanepiper 3y ago
Back in the early days, Vice had some really good content - I'll always remember Shane Smith's trip on the Siberian railway on his trip to North Korea. It's a shame the management have decided on the scorched earth approach here.
1vuio0pswjnm7 3y ago
No Javascript: https://writing.exchange/@ernie.rss https://writing.exchange/@ernie.rss https://writing.exchange/@ernie/111977450241144169/embed https://writing.exchange/@ernie/111977450241144169/embed
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 3y ago
 Here is how to get the replies: curl -si40A "" -o 1.json https://writing.exchange/api/v1/statuses/111977450241144169/context Here is a small program to convert the JSON to a simple, text-only HTML page. No Javascript. cat > 777.l /* mastodon */ int fileno (FILE *); #define jmp (yy_start) = 1 + 2 * int x,y=1,z=1; #define echo(y) {for(x=y;x<yyleng;x++)putc(yytext[x],yyout);fwrite(" ",1,4,yyout);} %s M0 %option nounput noinput noyywrap %% \"poll\":(null|[^\"]+) z++; \"id\":\"[^\"]+ if(z){fwrite(" ",1,4,yyout);y++;echo(6); z=0;} \"group\":(false|true) y=0; \"created_at\":\"[^\"]+ if(y)echo(14); \"acct\":\"[^\"]+ echo(8); \"content\":\" jmp M0; <M0>\", fwrite(" ",1,4,yyout);putc(10,yyout);jmp 0; <M0>\\ <M0>\\u003c putc(60,yyout); <M0>\\u003e putc(62,yyout); <M0>\\u0026 putc(38,yyout); <M0>[^,] putc(yytext[0],yyout); .|\n %% int main(){ fwrite("<meta charset=utf-8>\n",1,21,stdout); yylex(); exit(0); } ^D flex -8Cem 777.l cc -O3 -std=c89 -W -Wall -pedantic -pipe lex.yy.c -static -o yy777 strip -s yy777 yy777 < 1.json > 1.htm firefox ./1.htm links 1.htm
lobito14 3y ago
A nice project turned into a mouthpiece for the status quo had to come to an end.
a1o 3y ago
> They announced Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and were bought by private equity Ah, ok.
coldtea 3y ago
Couldn't happen to better journalism /s
majani 3y ago
Bold-ish prediction: by 2040 it will only be individual influencers producing news. Most newsroom outlets are zombies at this point, being kept alive by something outside of their ad revenue
- satao 3y ago
  that's why some kind of news should be publicly funded. otherwise only people with financial means will be able to produce news.
  - ejb999 3y ago
    publicly funded meaning that they will only report news that is favorable to whoever happens to be in power at the time and controls the purse strings? no thanks. The USA does not need state sponsored media.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - satao 3y ago
      The US already has state sponsored media. Also, the US military is a big sponsor of Hollywood related content as long as they don't put the military in bad light.
  - Clubber 3y ago
    That's NPR/PBS, but they seemed to have fallen off the rails during the Trump administration. They were top notch before Trump though; their coverage of how we got into Iraq, "Bush's War" was phenomenal. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/documentary/bushswar/ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/documentary/bushswar/
    - satao 3y ago
      yeah, NPR/PBS is great. we should always vote for people who advocate for it instead of people who wants to cut its funds.
latexr 3y ago
> Regrettably, this means that we will be reducing our workforce, eliminating several hundred positions. > […] > Together, I am confident that we will overcome any challenges and achieve our shared goals. By firing several hundred people, you just created new challenges for them. Their goal now is to find a new source of income to pay rent and eat. Are you doing anything to mitigate that, or does the “together” only apply for people who help you on your goals? What exactly are this shared unspecified goals you’ll all overcome? Pretty dry and soulless letter. Perhaps next time consider having one of the good writers go over it.
gripfx 3y ago
Not everything on Vice was great but I will always be grateful for them introducing me to the Joel Golby and his London Rental Opportunity of the Week column[0]. [0]: https://www.vice.com/en/contributor/joel-golby https://www.vice.com/en/contributor/joel-golby
rcarmo 3y ago
I fail to understand how digital content distribution has stopped being efficient. It would probably be more accurate to say "This is not the goldmine we need to feed all our shareholders and the mountain of bureaucracy and inefficiency that we have turned into as a media outlet". Also, the loss of content that should have been trivial to archive is nearly criminal. Almost like book burning.
davidguetta 3y ago
[flagged]
- RamblingCTO 3y ago
  Even though I agree with the overall sentiment, in this instance it was PE that destroyed vice in the first place.
  - davidguetta 3y ago
    PE ?
    - RamblingCTO 3y ago
      private equity
RamblingCTO 3y ago
What a shame, how will I find out about people doing yoghurt from pussy juice?
_heimdall 3y ago
This sure feels like another notch in the "the web is fundamentally broken" belt. Google search continues to get worse, I can't find a recipe without diving past a few dozen ads, and now content creation sites are abandoning their own domains in favor of posting their new content direct to social media. It really is starting to feel like the web will be nearly useless in the next year or two.
- sanroot99 3y ago
  Sure it is and this trend is depressing.
shortformblog 3y ago
This is my toot. I’d like to point out I have written a lot of content for Motherboard over the years about the importance of digital preservation. While the story is still online (hopefully it stays there), I’d like to point out this piece in particular: https://www.vice.com/en/article/qvg5z3/what-if-we-treated-websites-like-federally-protected-historic-places https://www.vice.com/en/article/qvg5z3/what-if-we-treated-we... Also posted at Tedium: https://tedium.co/2019/10/17/historic-websites-preservation/ https://tedium.co/2019/10/17/historic-websites-preservation/ Too many good websites just get steamrolled out of nowhere. It would be deeply ironic if I spent a good chunk of my career writing pieces for a site that deleted its archive.
- natmaka 3y ago
  Did you check if Archive.org archived all your pieces, and everything you like? See: https://web.archive.org/web/2/https://www.vice.com/en/article/qvg5z3/what-if-we-treated-websites-like-federally-protected-historic-places https://web.archive.org/web/2/https://www.vice.com/en/articl...
  - shortformblog 3y ago
    I spent 2+ hours backing up as much as I could. Most of my pieces were syndication from my newsletter, but I had a number of originals, at least two that I spent 3+ months on. I'm going to repost them on my site if the archive goes down.
TomMasz 3y ago
In related news, Yahoo is slashing Engadget staff: https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/22/24080215/engadget-layoffs-tech-news-blogs-editorial-restructuring https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/22/24080215/engadget-layoffs...
JansjoFromIkea 3y ago
I'm currently diving into some fairly fringe and very dead tech so my perspective is a bit skewed but I seem to be relying on the wayback machine an absolutely absurd amount lately.
- FrustratedMonky 3y ago
  Because the internet has started dying. Everyone though it would take at least some time before AI generated content kind of started stifling the internet, making it hard to find things, hard to figure out what is real. But, its already ramped up. I at least thought it would be a few more months and more focused on election. But at least me, I seem to see its impact in every YouTube video, generated content is appearing everywhere already.
  - btbuildem 3y ago
    It's not AI killing the internet, it's the parasitic worms in human suits that run hedge and equity funds. Everything gets converted into "value" which means nothing has value. The end game seems to be one engorged sack of money, and nothing left to buy with it.
    - sph 3y ago
      It's not the parasitic worms managing Apache, it's us. For a fat paycheck.
  - herculity275 3y ago
    It's still early days but things are definitely trending that way. Google Search is significantly worse than it used to be. Twitter is a cesspool of blue checked spam. Reddit is still functioning, but I keep seeing obviously transformer-generated comments more and more often (and I'm sure I'm reading tons more without even realizing). Once Sora and its ilk become widespread Youtube, Tiktok and Instagram are gonna get flooded with entirely synthetic content.
  - JansjoFromIkea 3y ago
    In the case of wayback machine reliance it isn't AI really; that's due to the decline of sectors of the tech industry meaning loads of places are cutting back on hosting old stuff for very slight profit gains. There's an argument the way AI is getting so much focus has resulted in a neglect of this kind of stuff after years/decades of it sticking around at mostly fairly low cost. I'd say a bigger source of harm has been the endless iteration in agile practices meaning old stuff is treated as low priority because the business focus is always on adding new stuff. It's a lot harder to argue up the management chain that making something more stable will have longer term gains than A/B testing several new designs. The amount of sites that repeatedly destroyed their old content with a redesign is a bit absurd. A LOT of websites feel like they could benefit from improving their fundamental experiences and it's been so long since that was a priority that it's virtually an impossibility to untangle it at this point.
shp0ngle 3y ago
Looking at their YouTube, their recent videos don't have exactly low view count, but also not as high as I would expect, given how costly they must be https://youtube.com/@VICE https://youtube.com/@VICE I guess they were really a product of a different time.
- egeozcan 3y ago
  Their youtube really needs to be archived. It'd be a shame if they deleted all that content.
  - brokencode 3y ago
    Why would they even archive it? They don’t have to pay for hosting on YouTube, so those videos at this point are a cost free revenue stream.
    - Reubachi 3y ago
      Because youtube DOES charge them via adsense, and TOS can change at any moment. Eventually, that TOS can change and they can delist old content, reneg on ad terms, force new editing/censoring on old videos etc. All within their right as platform holder. Sort of like saying "I haven't been in an accident. Why would I need insurance?"
- robin_reala 3y ago
  They’re not stopping producing content, they’re shuttering their own website. I imagine high YouTube viewing figures is exactly the sort of thing that plays into this decision.
tegling 3y ago
How can we solve this if we don't defer this to laziness but try to address it as a very real cost for the owner of the site in terms of - Brand damage (content), e.g. Cancel culture, etc when old articles are discovered later or seen in new light - Brand damage (privacy/user base), e.g. Assumed to protect identity of all old users, risk of exposing secrets, offering old user-generated content as training data to ML not wanted - IT security, potential attack surface or exposes info to use when designing attacks - Lawsuits (content), e.g copyright/DMCA or content that is deemed illegal/not properly licensed I guess the list could be made longer.
- user_7832 3y ago
  > Brand damage (content), e.g. Cancel culture, etc when old articles are discovered later or seen in new light I have yet to see any major such instances, especially to brands. PR firms can do quite a lot for the right money. The general “victims” I have seen are individuals post varying criminal charges (eg R Kelly).
jtdev 3y ago
[dead]
adr1an 3y ago
Maybe they will post to activity pub, or someone will mirror whatever networks. I hope to find them again by chance or other ;)
sudden_dystopia 3y ago
Good riddance
billy99k 3y ago
If you really want to save the content for yourself, use something like https://archivebox.io/ https://archivebox.io/ I've been running a local instance for a few years now and download/save tech articles all time. I can search and find them as needed.
- greenie_beans 3y ago
  that looks very useful, thanks for sharing
- EamonnMR 3y ago
  I'm very interested in something like archive box but: * Can also download Internet Archive snapshots * Suitable for (read only) exposure to the open Internet, or saves sites as static content that you could host easily by slapping it into an Nginx or Apache directory. Is it the tool for the job?
kyledrake 3y ago
We had some great press from Vice Motherboard. A lot of the Motherboard crew started their own tech news reporting portal: https://www.404media.co/ https://www.404media.co/
macspoofing 3y ago
Not surprising. One of the big changes over the last 10-15 years was the centralization of content onto Social Media Platforms (with textual content being completely sidelined). That coupled with the advent of smartphones, means people don't browse the "open" web as they did pre-2010. This in turn collapsed ad-revenue and companies like Vice are paying the price for that.
hatch7 3y ago
> To use the Mastodon web application, please enable JavaScript. Alternatively, try one of the native apps for Mastodon for your platform. Such a sad regression for web applications. It seriously blows my mind supporters of open source software and "freedom" put up with this stupid shit.
stemlord 3y ago
I liked the magazine-oriented things they did like the fashion do's and don'ts, the music reviews, the johnny ryan comic segments and the richard kern features. Their physical issues were pretty high quality for something that you could grab from yoir local spot for free. That era has been long-gone for a while now though, so this isn't a huge loss in that respect
menotyou 3y ago
Was Vice a thing? I only occasionally visited the site, mostly after having link to a presumably interesting story. Most of the content I found mildly interesting at best, but my major criticism is everything is stretched in overly long narratives. TLDR in almost all cases I visited the site.
fortynights 3y ago
Some interesting insider insights in the last days. https://overcast.fm/+2EPJZOFok https://overcast.fm/+2EPJZOFok
consuelolisb1 3y ago
[dead]
brewsterkahle1 3y ago
The Internet Archive taking over a dead website domains and URL's makes sense to keep them useful to web users (the ongoing fee of the domain name is a pain, but not that expensive) we have taken over other people's systems with mechanism (like purl.org ) but a static website would be even easier-- redirects galore (20 million broken links fixed in wikipedia) or give us the domain name. We even had a 404 handler people could put on their website, but that may be out of date-- if others want to put it on their website (please vice!) we would bring it up to date. We also have a 404 service in the Brave browswer (go Brave!). Please communicate to Chrome folks, Mozilla, others how awesome it would be for them to build this into their browser. info@archive.org if you would like to do something like this. -brewster Digital Librarian, Internet Archive

836 points by colinprince 3y ago

devilsAdv0cate 3y ago

[dead]

narrator 3y ago

[flagged]

TMWNN 3y ago
[flagged]
- harrisonpage 3y ago
  yawn
tehjoker 3y ago
Isn't one of the founders of VICE a founder of the Proud Boys? https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/06/the-secret-history-of-gavin-mcinnes https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/06/the-secret-history-o...
- wahnfrieden 3y ago
  Yes and he's the one who originated the "Dos and Don'ts" column OP loved
- defrost 3y ago
  Yeah, but, he changed . . . In the 1990s, McInnes was hardly a far-right menace. He was a tree-planting vegetarian, a druggy anarchist, and a self-described “dogmatic feminist.” Some people who knew him then still regard him as one of the funniest people they’ve ever met. He counted comedians such as David Cross and Sarah Silverman as friends, both of whom contributed articles to Vice. [ ... ] But over time McInnes accelerated his drift to the political fringe.
  - LAC-Tech 3y ago
    He was a tree-planting vegetarian, a druggy anarchist, and a self-described “dogmatic feminist ... But over time McInnes accelerated his drift to the political fringe. Sounds like he just moved from one fringe to another.

windowshopping 3y ago

Wow. I have read a lot of articles there without ever paying a dime. So I'm disappointed but not altogether surprised.

chc4 3y ago

Time to reset the "days since MBAs ran a company into the ground" ticker, I guess?

dylan604 3y ago
Has it ever reached 1?
- happytiger 3y ago
  Once. In 1983. And management theory has been forever trying to do it again.
  - fernandopj 3y ago
    Do elaborate!
  - kome 3y ago
    hmm, what?
    - Geisterde 3y ago
      I think this is a thing in certain industries. Game development for instance; I feel like the more money a publisher has, the worse the result, and I would argue that one of the factors is an increase in corporate types. There hasnt been so much the implosion of those companies yet, but id wager in the next 5-10 years they will have to majorly trim down or perish. The corporate influence is too constricting for creative works. I imagine there are many businesses where MBAs make sense, and that any large company needs them.
refurb 3y ago
LOL. Vice was going into the toilet regardless of who ran it.
andy800 3y ago
Vice only survived as long as it did because some MBAs insisted that if they wanted to do cool stuff (documentaries, TV channel) they needed to do something else on the side that actually generated revenue. The majority of Vice's revenue came via highly un-sexy "creative services" (i.e. producing TV commercials) and other advertising media.

The28thDuck 3y ago

They ran out of dangerous places to do designer drugs. In all honesty, Vice was a cool outlet for out-there stories for teens and adults alike. Shame it’s shutting down but then again I never supported it.

antegamisou 3y ago
My thoughts as well. It was pretty strong the first few years and rapidly declined in quality for the last 5 or so.
- ametrau 3y ago
  At some point they stopped being fun and challenging and just became weird and angry. As much as I hate to say it (millenial), it's probably due to the age of millenials and genx now. They should have pivoted a different way--more in line with the changing life stage of the readership.
  - hackernewds 3y ago
    are you implying they swapped to catering to gen Z? why didn't that continue to work, when it did will millennials at that age
    - cal85 3y ago
      My sense is fewer Zoomers are interested in the grimy/underworld/rave vibe compared to Millennials and Gen X. It’s all the same to them. My theory is that when Millennials were growing up there was still a strong ‘default culture’ that helped sustain a thriving counter-culture. One could move decisively between the two when bored/frazzled. Zoomers have grown up flailing around in a devolved soup of ideas. Everything’s edgy so nothing is.
      - rsynnott 3y ago
        I would just like to point out that members/former of every counterculture back to at least the 50s have said this about the younger generation; it’s almost a cliche.

rvz 3y ago

Well Vice.com destroyed themselves after the founder left and was taken over. Ever since, they ran themselves into the ground and raised so much money all for what? Only for their website to be shut down after being bankrupt. All faster than their own deranged Twitter / X collapse predictions. Nothing of value was lost.

TMWNN 3y ago
>Nothing of value was lost. Place your bets on what will die next. HuffPo? Vox? Salon (which I know had a near-death experience a few years ago; I doubt its financial health is any better now)?
- RajT88 3y ago
  HuffPo is so clickbaity and ad filled I cannot imagine it going anywhere.
  - homefree 3y ago
    Salon is also awful - it’ll be nice when they’re done
    - transcriptase 3y ago
      They’ll be fine as long as Trump wins the next election. The ad revenue from having even one of your daily “orange man bad” articles hit the top of a dozen massive subreddits a few times a week can sustain any business.
      - SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
        I think you were downvoted by people who so viscerally can’t stand the idea of Trump winning they need to silence anyone that might dare to say it… which entirely proves your point market that a media outlet can sustain on.
- rvz 3y ago

johnsutor 3y ago

Was more into their YouTube / Video content to be honest

mlekoszek 3y ago

Is this actually as dramatic as the title implies? The email says "we will no longer publish content on vice.com." That doesn't necessarily mean they'll pull vice.com offline. Either way, between this and Pitchfork winding down, it really feels like we're entering new times culturally.

coffeebeqn 3y ago
Were either site still culturally relevant? Both seem about a decade into their decline
- mlekoszek 3y ago
  Yeah -- you're right, this has been a long time coming. I just think the closures and layoffs these past few months have finally closed the chapter on the style of journalism and tastemaking they built.
- OhioMan2943 3y ago
  but there isn't any cohesive, structured, insightful cultural commentary replacing them- we're in murky waters and people i'm sure people will feel the squeeze of an uncreative culture even more than they are already
shortformblog 3y ago
The rumor yesterday was that they were. Employees had gotten a heads-up to back up their content because it may not be online forever. (It’s my toot.)

system2 3y ago

Why are they still hiring? https://vice.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/Vice_External_Career_Site https://vice.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/Vice_External_Caree...

avery17 3y ago
Vice isn't going out of business. Did you even read the title?
- mkl 3y ago
  The title is "Vice website is shutting down", and this job page refers to vice.com. It's the screenshotted text that says they will "transition to a studio model" and still exist, but no longer publish on vice.com. It also says they will be eliminating several hundred positions, so the hiring question seems appropriate.
- system2 3y ago
  I went to vice.com and clicked on ABOUT then hiring for VICE.com. So I think it is fair to assume it is for vice.com. https://www.vice.com/en/page/vice-about https://www.vice.com/en/page/vice-about
bufo 3y ago
It takes a while to take down job posts. Everyone likely learned the decision recently. I don’t think the employees who are going to be laid off care about updating the job posts at the moment…

seliopou 3y ago

The post is written by a guy named Ernie that writes a newsletter called Tedium, which I highly recommend. Today’s newsletter about BuzzFeed, which came out earlier this afternoon, alluded to big news coming out of Vice soon. Didn’t know it was gonna be this big, but in any case he called it.

zilti 3y ago
That Vice would shut down is known for weeks at this point though

nextaccountic 3y ago

It makes no sense to not let the site online in an archived form, for the posterity It wouldn't even be a significant cost and ads would recoup it anyway There should be a way to donate a website to the Internet Archive so that they run an online archive on it, basically keeping the site frozen forever (rather than relying on the Wayback Machine which has worse UX)

paxys 3y ago
Who said they are not letting the site stay online?
- Scoundreller 3y ago
  it says "we will no longer publish content on vice.com" which is ambiguous. If I stop posting new content, have I stopped publishing? Or is it if I stop serving, then I've stopped publishing?
  - paxys 3y ago
    It is not ambiguous. They are no longer publishing new content. They have not said they will unpublish existing content.
    - mingus88 3y ago
      “New” is not in the original post. Saying “we will no longer publish content” could very well mean they are taking down the site; thus it is no longer published I think it’s very likely that this is what’s going to happen because even a static archive site is going to cost money and dilute their new social brand Perhaps they’ll repost their old stuff on their new channels but it will nevertheless suck for old timers like me that refuse to use social media
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
- 3y ago

therealfiona 3y ago

After they stopped doing the Vice Guide to Travel, I stopped watching.

ChrisArchitect 3y ago

[dupe] Any official source on this yet? Guess not since they won't post it on their website /s https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39475405 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39475405 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39471154 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39471154 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39474224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39474224

MangoCoffee 3y ago

Shane Smith cashed out at Vice's highest...gotta say either he knows this is how he going to exit or he knows the industry (digital media)

1905 3y ago
[dead]
gaws 3y ago
It's both.

MuffinFlavored 3y ago

They have 18,000,000 subscribers on YouTube... how can they not have enough money to host a website and pay some people to create content?... RIP Epicly Later'd?

gjsman-1000 3y ago
YouTube payouts have hit rock bottom lately - which has, notably, been part of the reason for so many creator retirements. Ironic, considering the ad blocker ban was supposed to fix this.
- majani 3y ago
  Once YouTube started monetizing videos that weren't in the partner program it was always going to be downhill from there. The supply of ad-eligible videos probably doubled overnight
paxys 3y ago
18M YouTube subscribers can sustain a decent business, sure, but not one with 3000+ employees.
- resolutebat 3y ago
  What? Why on earth does Vice have 3000 employees? I thought publishing companies long since switched to having all their content creators freelance. Edit: I thought OP was exaggerating, but nope, per this random website they have/had at least 2,300. https://rocketreach.co/vice-media-profile_b5c6f6cef42e0cd9 https://rocketreach.co/vice-media-profile_b5c6f6cef42e0cd9
  - doctor_eval 3y ago
    That alone explains what’s happening.
  - sfgunn 3y ago
    [flagged]

1letterunixname 3y ago

Once they got funding and on HBO they rested on their behinds, spent too much money, wasted effort on bullshit while neglecting hard journalism, and believed they "arrived." Paper billionaires checked out, some sold out, and their value slowly went to zero because the owners failed to insist on leadership and culture continuity. Sad af and a total waste. Never get complacent.

transcriptase 3y ago
When you go from: “our employee spent 3 weeks alone filming inside the islamic state” to “what’s up with taylor swift fans and cowboy hats?” … it might be time to jump ship before the layoffs.
- morkalork 3y ago
  From secretly filming inside North Korea to daily content marketing listicles.

mellosouls 3y ago

Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/media/2024/02/22/vice-media-shuts-down-layoffs/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/media/2024/02/22/vice-m... Former digital-media darling Vice to end website, lay off hundreds

kbos87 3y ago

I think this says more about the cost relative to the value of running a website in 2024 than anything else.

nomilk 3y ago

Nowhere near as dramatic as the headline implies. The tl;dr (slightly paraphrased) > It is no longer cost-effective for us to distribute content the way we've done previously. Moving forward we will partner with established media companies to distribute our content as we fully transition to a studio model. As part of this we will no longer publish content on vice.com, putting more emphasis on our social channels Vice is still in business, but its content distribution is changing from website to a combination of publishing via larger media companies and social media.

bufo 3y ago
“Vice website is shutting down” is 100% accurate. Note that they will also lay off most of their staff.
- nomilk 3y ago
  Yup. The parent comment disambiguates between vice the website and vice generally. Only the website is shutting down; vice the org will still be around.

paxys 3y ago

Reminder that Vice Media filed for bankruptcy and was acquired by a private equity firm last year. Nothing that is happening now should be surprising. The company's brand and content library are being squeezed for any remaining profits and its carcass will then be tossed away.

pengaru 3y ago

Just another step in the ongoing collapse of Vice Media https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vice_Media#Bankruptcy_and_sale_(2023%E2%80%93present) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vice_Media#Bankruptcy_and_sale...

stalfosknight 3y ago

Why do executives have to talk like that? It’s so off-putting.

morkalork 3y ago

Pour one out for Motherboard, they had some solid scoops in their time. A real rarity for media covering hacking and cyber crime.

poisonborz 3y ago
Former staff started a new site called 404 Media

geor9e 3y ago

Full text: Dear Vice Team, As we navigate the ever-evolving business landscape, we need to adapt and best align our strategies to be more competitive in the long term. After careful consideration and discussion with the board, we have decided to make some fundamental changes to our strategic vision at Vice. We create and produce outstanding original content true to the Vice brand. However, it is no longer cost-effective for us to distribute our digital content the way we have done previously. Moving forward, we will look to partner with established media companies to distribute our digital content, including news, on their global platforms, as we fully transition to a studio model. As part of this shift, we will no longer publish content on vice.com, instead putting more emphasis on our social channels as we accelerate our discussions with partners to take our content to where it will be viewed most broadly. Separately, Refinery 29 will continue to operate as a standalone diversified digital publishing business, creating engaging, social first content. As you know, we are in advanced discussions to sell this business, and we are continuing with that process. We expect to announce more on that in the coming weeks. With this strategic shift comes the need to realign our resources and streamline our overall operations at Vice. Regrettably, this means that we will be reducing our workforce, eliminating several hundred positions. This decision was not made lightly, and I understand the significant impact it will have on those affected. Employees who will be affected will notified about next steps early next week, consistent with local laws and practices. I know that saying goodbye to our valued colleagues is difficult and feels overwhelming, but this is the best path forward for Vice as we position the company for long-term creative and financial success. Our financial partners are supportive and have agreed to invest in this operating model going forward. We will emerge stronger and more resilient as we embark on this new phase of our journey. Thank you for your continued dedication to Vice and support during this time of transition. Together, I am confident that we will overcome any challenges and achieve our shared goals. Bruce

dmix 3y ago
The key bit: > As part of this shift, we will no longer publish content on vice.com @dang can we change the headline to "Vice will no longer publish content on vice.com" instead of implying the website is shutting down? They will obviously keep it around for existing SEO ads and as a brand to sell ads for their other content on other platforms.

nisa 3y ago

I'm thankful for the Russian roulette series. Showed the brutality of war in Ukraine in 2014. Some scenes I won't forget. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLw613M86o5o7a0FGlPRdt47xiDiggbNsZ&si=VSUW1qwYQFirweJi https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLw613M86o5o7a0FGlPRdt47xi...

captainkrtek 3y ago
I recall watching this series as each episode dropped, truly memorable journalism showing history in the making. Also emailed with Simon Ostrovsky years later, very nice guy.
sva_ 3y ago
The old documentaries where Shane Smith himself went down to all kinds of dangerous places were really sick.
- andy800 3y ago
  For a brief time, their HBO series was essentially a blueprint for a 21st-century 60 Minutes (which long ago became a hollow shell of its former self).

accrual 3y ago

Bummer. Vice felt like real media that could be trusted by way of the weird/outlandaish ways they conducted themselves.

sfgunn 3y ago
That's why their propaganda was so successful.

jp57 3y ago

People still don't realize how many things from the last fifteen years were LIRPs. Low interest rate phenomena doomed the moment investors can get a halfway-decent yield from fixed-income investments.

DiscourseFan 3y ago
Its odd to think that both Silicon Valley and Vice were from the same phenomenon, but it does track (radical entrepreneurial libertarian "world-changing" businesses). But yeah, the whole neoliberal environment just produced a lot of bullshit in the end (in the developed countries). But I don't think, fortunately, the reaction to neoliberalism is going to stymy creativity at all, I think many are ready to embrace a new kind of economy.
- FredPret 3y ago
  Silicon Valley predates low interest rates by decades, and the tsunami of money it generates helped to create an environment where low interest rates for long periods were even possible
  - AlexandrB 3y ago
    This doesn't make sense to me. Low interest rates are possible when inflation is not out of control. Don't you need a money sink instead of a money source to make low interest rates possible for long periods? In a way that could still be SV's doing though. Garbage companies like Juicero were able to absorb capital from the "real" economy to keep inflation from rising.
    - tmnvix 3y ago
      > Low interest rates are possible when inflation is not out of control. Not to be pedantic, but it really depends on what you mean by inflation. If you only consider CPI then sure - maybe you're right - but in my opinion we've had out of control asset price inflation together with falling interest rates since around the time of the GFC. I'd go so far as to say it's been the defining feature of western economies over that period. Basically badly implemented quantitative easing.

vonjuice 3y ago

And they've yet to release season 3 of Nirvanna the Band the Show. Unacceptable.

lamp_book 3y ago

Inside North Korea is a classic: https://video.vice.com/en_us/video/vice-guide-to-north-korea/56815b6132382b833c2230ad https://video.vice.com/en_us/video/vice-guide-to-north-korea...

WarOnPrivacy 3y ago
> (link to Part 1) tl;dr = Vice Travel Guide site has a half-hearted vibe going on. The function decay felt like it might have started some years before VC. I watched Inside NK - it's a good as you say. And then I tried to find the link to Part 2. 'Tried' because the vid doesn't auto-advance to it and pt2 isn't among the handful of videos that can be found thru navigation or searching from that page. I did find it on Google. Also part 3. Also other offerings that Vice's internal navigation didn't lead me to. Included in that last was a likable followup series, VG's to NK Labor Camps (in Siberia) https://video.vice.com/en_us/video/north-korean-labor-camps-part-17/566841374fe425b03b5fce50 https://video.vice.com/en_us/video/north-korean-labor-camps-... However, I suspect Vice doesn't care if anyone ever finds these classics - and hasn't cared for a while.

GypsyKing716 3y ago

Nobody really cares about Vice, because of the politic that just didn't make sense anymore. They stopped making good content like a decade ago.

chaosbolt 3y ago
-In mid-August 2013, Rupert Murdoch's 21st Century Fox invested US$70 million in Vice Media, resulting in a 5% stake. -In August 2014, A&E Networks, a television group jointly owned by The Walt Disney Company and Hearst Corporation, made a US$250-million investment in Vice Media for an ownership stake of 10%. -In November and December 2015, Disney made two additional individual investments of US$200 million totalling $400 million. -In June 2017, Vice secured a $450 million investment from private-equity firm TPG Capital to increase spending on scripted programming and ongoing international expansion. -Disney acquired Fox's stake in Vice when its acquisition of 21st Century Fox completed in March 2019. -On 3 May 2019, Vice Media announced that it raised $250 million in debt from George Soros and other investors. -Vice Media formally filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, as part of a possible sale to a consortium of lenders including Fortress Investment Group, which will, alongside Soros Fund Management and Monroe Capital, invest $225 million as a credit bid for nearly all of its assets. Ok so they used to be honest, then got investments from big media companies, hedge funds and banks, and they stopped being honest, then were driven to bankrupcy and acquired by the usual hedge funds who will probably just turn them into another propaganda (which they had already become a decade ago) cog in the media machine.
- hnbad 3y ago
  Propaganda for what?
  - nicky0 3y ago
    If you don’t already know, you’re the target of it.
  - brvsft 3y ago
    Pronouns Bio coyly pretends he doesn't know what Vice stands for.

localghost02 3y ago

Following the news from Pitchfork (absorbed by GQ and with layoffs) as well, this doesn't bode well for the future of written journalism and web publications

Solvency 3y ago
Dude. The future of all content is now in the hands of GPU farmhands (AI brokers). Have you SEEN Sora? 2030 the media world will be unrecognizable.

1-6 3y ago

I think it’s another victim of YouTube. I liked VICE’s content in the early days but it couldn’t really compete with all the content produced by individuals who were closer to the epicenter of conflict. Let it be.

asimpleusecase 3y ago

My guess is they will go AI generated content. Will pull the content of the website to use and style guide for the AI and prevent anyone else from training AI on their past content. Also I wonder if the lawsuit from New York Times against OpenAI has any impact. I could see new Vice owners try the same thing if New York Times were successful. But also, OpenAI defence is that they did not train on NYT archive but content that was quoting NYT. If I remember correctly VICE had a lot of NYT content that was heavily quoted. Maybe pulling all the content saves them from getting into endless wrangles in the future.

kristjansson 3y ago
Why would anyone want AI generated content from Vice, the brand known for direct, novel, firsthand reporting from relatively unknown/inaccessible places? Why would anyone want to read what an LLM thinks North Korea is like? For that matter why do we think anyone will want to read an LLM’s take on anything that has to be grounded in a reality that wasn’t part of its training data?
- Devasta 3y ago
  They don't need the viewer to read the article, just need them to open the article and view ads.

andrewryanatx 3y ago

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bijutoha 3y ago

Then what is it? https://www.vice.com/en https://www.vice.com/en

hk__2 3y ago
Read the article; they are not shutting down.

sigmonsays 3y ago

the internet is turning into a big turd of information it will probably be 50% ai generated garbage and 50% social rants in 10 years

hnbad 3y ago
If Twitter is representative of that future, 50% of those social rants will also be ai generated.

noomen 3y ago

[dead]

meindnoch 3y ago

Venezuela's transgender ketamine dealers are mourning.

WFHRenaissance 3y ago
Vice got super activisty toward the end - obviously there is a place for that sort of content but mainly I watched Vice so I could see nerdy white guys in strange places doing weird shit

aaron695 3y ago

[dead]

jacurtis 3y ago

Its sad that Vice feels like they can only gain value from social media and YouTube. I feel like the best part of the internet is dying (good written detailed content), but the worst part of it is surviving and thriving: social media (short lived, low quality, clickbaity, dopamine chasing content).

arsome 3y ago
I think YouTube is the counter argument to this - long form content from passionate people has taken off pretty good there. Perhaps it's just me, but it seriously makes the rest of social media look like an absolute trashfire by comparison.
- Scoundreller 3y ago
  Sorta. YouTube is kinda anti-monetization of your content unless you get 1000 subscribers, which is kinda hard if you don’t do consistent topic or are entertaining. If you’re a grouchy mechanic and do boring videos of exactly how to do brakes on every car, that’s incredibly useful, but not subscribeable (unless your grouchiness becomes a meme). I feel bad for the one guy that did 1 perfect video on how to fix&overhaul my garage door opener. But he won’t see a cent even as YouTube puts ads on it anyway and takes 100%. Meanwhile on blogs etc with Adsense, you could monetize immediately. That’s how i started out and figured out what worked. Went from $2/month, to 20 to 200 to 2000 for a while. Lots of random articles. Didn’t care to become a “platform” (new users that visit and never come back are the best ad-clickers).
  - glfharris 3y ago
    I suppose that's where things like tip jars work quite well. To reward useful but otherwise niche content.
    - fleischhauf 3y ago
      is tip jars an actual software solutions for tipping? I'm wondering what is most commonly used for tipping websites/content?

deleted 3y ago

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deleted 3y ago

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gnarbarian 3y ago

hooray

gigatexal 3y ago

Hopefully the internet archive can save Vice from itself and archive it for posterity. This sucks. This sucks. I really liked Vice for their journalism. Shame there’s basically no money in it these days. I hope the journalists go somewhere else and are able to do the same awesome work.

jameyk 3y ago

[flagged]

cookiemonsieur 3y ago
Yup. I remember all the lies they used to put out back in the day in relation to the conlifct in syria.
- seattle_spring 3y ago
  The assertion that the “non-woke” media outlets do not lie or misrepresent information gave me a good hearty morning chuckle.
  - cookiemonsieur 3y ago
    They do. But pretending that somehow, a terrorist organisation would allow a bunch of woke leftists into their compounds to film is also equally hilarious. Not to mention all their so called "reporting" on poor neighbourhoods in LA/Chicago, specifically designed to portray black kids as quasi-animals, but I digress. Good riddance to vice.
lobito14 3y ago
Exactly my thoughts

LNSY 3y ago

Saudi Arabia wants their stories about them spiked. Will Vice be on archive.org?

swatson741 3y ago

I personally never visited their website to begin with so this choice makes sense to me. It feels like thats true for most mainstream journalism sites. Very curious if this is a sign of things to come or just unique to Vice.

truemotive 3y ago

I was watching Dark Side of the Ring on Vice TV the other day (a vice of mine by chance), and despite the fact that their eponymous block bold letter design language was intact during the promo commercials for upcoming shows, it was clearly all for Vice-adjacent syndicated TV shows that felt more at home on HGTV or worse. I was pretty shocked and figured they just suffered the same fate of The Learning Channel, may it forever rest in peace.

adfm 3y ago
The current top story on vice.com, “Inside the Christian Nationalist Church Where Proud Boys Go to be Baptized,” is a bit thick. “Meaner, faster, and more dynamic.” Ha! David Carr had their number off the bat: https://youtu.be/iLmkec_4Rfo?si=ZlXSnFajg81RNcRM https://youtu.be/iLmkec_4Rfo?si=ZlXSnFajg81RNcRM

Slava_Propanei 3y ago

[dead]

tanepiper 3y ago

Back in the early days, Vice had some really good content - I'll always remember Shane Smith's trip on the Siberian railway on his trip to North Korea. It's a shame the management have decided on the scorched earth approach here.

1vuio0pswjnm7 3y ago

No Javascript: https://writing.exchange/@ernie.rss https://writing.exchange/@ernie.rss https://writing.exchange/@ernie/111977450241144169/embed https://writing.exchange/@ernie/111977450241144169/embed

1vuio0pswjnm7 3y ago
Here is how to get the replies: curl -si40A "" -o 1.json https://writing.exchange/api/v1/statuses/111977450241144169/context Here is a small program to convert the JSON to a simple, text-only HTML page. No Javascript. cat > 777.l /* mastodon */ int fileno (FILE *); #define jmp (yy_start) = 1 + 2 * int x,y=1,z=1; #define echo(y) {for(x=y;x<yyleng;x++)putc(yytext[x],yyout);fwrite(" ",1,4,yyout);} %s M0 %option nounput noinput noyywrap %% \"poll\":(null|[^\"]+) z++; \"id\":\"[^\"]+ if(z){fwrite(" ",1,4,yyout);y++;echo(6); z=0;} \"group\":(false|true) y=0; \"created_at\":\"[^\"]+ if(y)echo(14); \"acct\":\"[^\"]+ echo(8); \"content\":\" jmp M0; <M0>\", fwrite(" ",1,4,yyout);putc(10,yyout);jmp 0; <M0>\\ <M0>\\u003c putc(60,yyout); <M0>\\u003e putc(62,yyout); <M0>\\u0026 putc(38,yyout); <M0>[^,] putc(yytext[0],yyout); .|\n %% int main(){ fwrite("<meta charset=utf-8>\n",1,21,stdout); yylex(); exit(0); } ^D flex -8Cem 777.l cc -O3 -std=c89 -W -Wall -pedantic -pipe lex.yy.c -static -o yy777 strip -s yy777 yy777 < 1.json > 1.htm firefox ./1.htm links 1.htm

lobito14 3y ago

A nice project turned into a mouthpiece for the status quo had to come to an end.

a1o 3y ago

> They announced Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and were bought by private equity Ah, ok.

coldtea 3y ago

Couldn't happen to better journalism /s

majani 3y ago

Bold-ish prediction: by 2040 it will only be individual influencers producing news. Most newsroom outlets are zombies at this point, being kept alive by something outside of their ad revenue

satao 3y ago
that's why some kind of news should be publicly funded. otherwise only people with financial means will be able to produce news.
- ejb999 3y ago
  publicly funded meaning that they will only report news that is favorable to whoever happens to be in power at the time and controls the purse strings? no thanks. The USA does not need state sponsored media.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - satao 3y ago
    The US already has state sponsored media. Also, the US military is a big sponsor of Hollywood related content as long as they don't put the military in bad light.
- Clubber 3y ago
  That's NPR/PBS, but they seemed to have fallen off the rails during the Trump administration. They were top notch before Trump though; their coverage of how we got into Iraq, "Bush's War" was phenomenal. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/documentary/bushswar/ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/documentary/bushswar/
  - satao 3y ago
    yeah, NPR/PBS is great. we should always vote for people who advocate for it instead of people who wants to cut its funds.

latexr 3y ago

> Regrettably, this means that we will be reducing our workforce, eliminating several hundred positions. > […] > Together, I am confident that we will overcome any challenges and achieve our shared goals. By firing several hundred people, you just created new challenges for them. Their goal now is to find a new source of income to pay rent and eat. Are you doing anything to mitigate that, or does the “together” only apply for people who help you on your goals? What exactly are this shared unspecified goals you’ll all overcome? Pretty dry and soulless letter. Perhaps next time consider having one of the good writers go over it.

gripfx 3y ago

Not everything on Vice was great but I will always be grateful for them introducing me to the Joel Golby and his London Rental Opportunity of the Week column[0]. [0]: https://www.vice.com/en/contributor/joel-golby https://www.vice.com/en/contributor/joel-golby

rcarmo 3y ago

I fail to understand how digital content distribution has stopped being efficient. It would probably be more accurate to say "This is not the goldmine we need to feed all our shareholders and the mountain of bureaucracy and inefficiency that we have turned into as a media outlet". Also, the loss of content that should have been trivial to archive is nearly criminal. Almost like book burning.

davidguetta 3y ago

[flagged]

RamblingCTO 3y ago
Even though I agree with the overall sentiment, in this instance it was PE that destroyed vice in the first place.
- davidguetta 3y ago
  PE ?
  - RamblingCTO 3y ago
    private equity

RamblingCTO 3y ago

What a shame, how will I find out about people doing yoghurt from pussy juice?

_heimdall 3y ago

This sure feels like another notch in the "the web is fundamentally broken" belt. Google search continues to get worse, I can't find a recipe without diving past a few dozen ads, and now content creation sites are abandoning their own domains in favor of posting their new content direct to social media. It really is starting to feel like the web will be nearly useless in the next year or two.

sanroot99 3y ago
Sure it is and this trend is depressing.

shortformblog 3y ago

This is my toot. I’d like to point out I have written a lot of content for Motherboard over the years about the importance of digital preservation. While the story is still online (hopefully it stays there), I’d like to point out this piece in particular: https://www.vice.com/en/article/qvg5z3/what-if-we-treated-websites-like-federally-protected-historic-places https://www.vice.com/en/article/qvg5z3/what-if-we-treated-we... Also posted at Tedium: https://tedium.co/2019/10/17/historic-websites-preservation/ https://tedium.co/2019/10/17/historic-websites-preservation/ Too many good websites just get steamrolled out of nowhere. It would be deeply ironic if I spent a good chunk of my career writing pieces for a site that deleted its archive.

natmaka 3y ago
Did you check if Archive.org archived all your pieces, and everything you like? See: https://web.archive.org/web/2/https://www.vice.com/en/article/qvg5z3/what-if-we-treated-websites-like-federally-protected-historic-places https://web.archive.org/web/2/https://www.vice.com/en/articl...
- shortformblog 3y ago
  I spent 2+ hours backing up as much as I could. Most of my pieces were syndication from my newsletter, but I had a number of originals, at least two that I spent 3+ months on. I'm going to repost them on my site if the archive goes down.

TomMasz 3y ago

In related news, Yahoo is slashing Engadget staff: https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/22/24080215/engadget-layoffs-tech-news-blogs-editorial-restructuring https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/22/24080215/engadget-layoffs...

JansjoFromIkea 3y ago

I'm currently diving into some fairly fringe and very dead tech so my perspective is a bit skewed but I seem to be relying on the wayback machine an absolutely absurd amount lately.

FrustratedMonky 3y ago
Because the internet has started dying. Everyone though it would take at least some time before AI generated content kind of started stifling the internet, making it hard to find things, hard to figure out what is real. But, its already ramped up. I at least thought it would be a few more months and more focused on election. But at least me, I seem to see its impact in every YouTube video, generated content is appearing everywhere already.
- btbuildem 3y ago
  It's not AI killing the internet, it's the parasitic worms in human suits that run hedge and equity funds. Everything gets converted into "value" which means nothing has value. The end game seems to be one engorged sack of money, and nothing left to buy with it.
  - sph 3y ago
    It's not the parasitic worms managing Apache, it's us. For a fat paycheck.
- herculity275 3y ago
  It's still early days but things are definitely trending that way. Google Search is significantly worse than it used to be. Twitter is a cesspool of blue checked spam. Reddit is still functioning, but I keep seeing obviously transformer-generated comments more and more often (and I'm sure I'm reading tons more without even realizing). Once Sora and its ilk become widespread Youtube, Tiktok and Instagram are gonna get flooded with entirely synthetic content.
- JansjoFromIkea 3y ago
  In the case of wayback machine reliance it isn't AI really; that's due to the decline of sectors of the tech industry meaning loads of places are cutting back on hosting old stuff for very slight profit gains. There's an argument the way AI is getting so much focus has resulted in a neglect of this kind of stuff after years/decades of it sticking around at mostly fairly low cost. I'd say a bigger source of harm has been the endless iteration in agile practices meaning old stuff is treated as low priority because the business focus is always on adding new stuff. It's a lot harder to argue up the management chain that making something more stable will have longer term gains than A/B testing several new designs. The amount of sites that repeatedly destroyed their old content with a redesign is a bit absurd. A LOT of websites feel like they could benefit from improving their fundamental experiences and it's been so long since that was a priority that it's virtually an impossibility to untangle it at this point.

shp0ngle 3y ago

Looking at their YouTube, their recent videos don't have exactly low view count, but also not as high as I would expect, given how costly they must be https://youtube.com/@VICE https://youtube.com/@VICE I guess they were really a product of a different time.

egeozcan 3y ago
Their youtube really needs to be archived. It'd be a shame if they deleted all that content.
- brokencode 3y ago
  Why would they even archive it? They don’t have to pay for hosting on YouTube, so those videos at this point are a cost free revenue stream.
  - Reubachi 3y ago
    Because youtube DOES charge them via adsense, and TOS can change at any moment. Eventually, that TOS can change and they can delist old content, reneg on ad terms, force new editing/censoring on old videos etc. All within their right as platform holder. Sort of like saying "I haven't been in an accident. Why would I need insurance?"
robin_reala 3y ago
They’re not stopping producing content, they’re shuttering their own website. I imagine high YouTube viewing figures is exactly the sort of thing that plays into this decision.

tegling 3y ago

How can we solve this if we don't defer this to laziness but try to address it as a very real cost for the owner of the site in terms of - Brand damage (content), e.g. Cancel culture, etc when old articles are discovered later or seen in new light - Brand damage (privacy/user base), e.g. Assumed to protect identity of all old users, risk of exposing secrets, offering old user-generated content as training data to ML not wanted - IT security, potential attack surface or exposes info to use when designing attacks - Lawsuits (content), e.g copyright/DMCA or content that is deemed illegal/not properly licensed I guess the list could be made longer.

user_7832 3y ago
> Brand damage (content), e.g. Cancel culture, etc when old articles are discovered later or seen in new light I have yet to see any major such instances, especially to brands. PR firms can do quite a lot for the right money. The general “victims” I have seen are individuals post varying criminal charges (eg R Kelly).

jtdev 3y ago

[dead]

adr1an 3y ago

Maybe they will post to activity pub, or someone will mirror whatever networks. I hope to find them again by chance or other ;)

sudden_dystopia 3y ago

Good riddance

billy99k 3y ago

If you really want to save the content for yourself, use something like https://archivebox.io/ https://archivebox.io/ I've been running a local instance for a few years now and download/save tech articles all time. I can search and find them as needed.

greenie_beans 3y ago
that looks very useful, thanks for sharing
EamonnMR 3y ago
I'm very interested in something like archive box but: * Can also download Internet Archive snapshots * Suitable for (read only) exposure to the open Internet, or saves sites as static content that you could host easily by slapping it into an Nginx or Apache directory. Is it the tool for the job?

kyledrake 3y ago

We had some great press from Vice Motherboard. A lot of the Motherboard crew started their own tech news reporting portal: https://www.404media.co/ https://www.404media.co/

macspoofing 3y ago

Not surprising. One of the big changes over the last 10-15 years was the centralization of content onto Social Media Platforms (with textual content being completely sidelined). That coupled with the advent of smartphones, means people don't browse the "open" web as they did pre-2010. This in turn collapsed ad-revenue and companies like Vice are paying the price for that.

hatch7 3y ago

> To use the Mastodon web application, please enable JavaScript. Alternatively, try one of the native apps for Mastodon for your platform. Such a sad regression for web applications. It seriously blows my mind supporters of open source software and "freedom" put up with this stupid shit.

stemlord 3y ago

I liked the magazine-oriented things they did like the fashion do's and don'ts, the music reviews, the johnny ryan comic segments and the richard kern features. Their physical issues were pretty high quality for something that you could grab from yoir local spot for free. That era has been long-gone for a while now though, so this isn't a huge loss in that respect

menotyou 3y ago

Was Vice a thing? I only occasionally visited the site, mostly after having link to a presumably interesting story. Most of the content I found mildly interesting at best, but my major criticism is everything is stretched in overly long narratives. TLDR in almost all cases I visited the site.

fortynights 3y ago

Some interesting insider insights in the last days. https://overcast.fm/+2EPJZOFok https://overcast.fm/+2EPJZOFok

consuelolisb1 3y ago

[dead]

brewsterkahle1 3y ago

The Internet Archive taking over a dead website domains and URL's makes sense to keep them useful to web users (the ongoing fee of the domain name is a pain, but not that expensive) we have taken over other people's systems with mechanism (like purl.org ) but a static website would be even easier-- redirects galore (20 million broken links fixed in wikipedia) or give us the domain name. We even had a 404 handler people could put on their website, but that may be out of date-- if others want to put it on their website (please vice!) we would bring it up to date. We also have a 404 service in the Brave browswer (go Brave!). Please communicate to Chrome folks, Mozilla, others how awesome it would be for them to build this into their browser. info@archive.org if you would like to do something like this. -brewster Digital Librarian, Internet Archive