31 ms·

> Charging a fee just for linking to something is a bad idea. If you're profiting from it, it's not a bad idea.

by flavius29663 2y ago

CalRobert 2y ago
If I run a newsletter that links to interesting properties for sale, should I be charged a fee for this?
- timothyduong 2y ago
  Maybe if your newsletter gets billions of subscribers and you’re making stacks from it, according to news outlets, yes
bko 2y ago
Aren’t you providing marketing to the newspaper? Isn’t that what these news agencies pay google billions for? There’s a whole industry (seo) designed around getting your site linked. This looks like a money grab to me. What am I missing?
Zak 2y ago
Why? What moral or legal principle entitles someone to compensation for linking to their website whether or not you're profiting from that? It's a different question when there's an excerpt or machine-generated summary. In that case, copyright applies, and in most jurisdictions it may or may not be fair use depending on what is copied and how it is presented.
bloppe 2y ago
It's actually still a bad idea, because nobody will link to you
estebarb 2y ago
In that case Google should pay everyone they link to, not just the ones with politician friends that can lobby for themselves. If they don't want a Google to index them they can use robots.txt to prevent it.
- jtriangle 2y ago
  Exactly. If google showing your site in search results is a problem, it's trivial to remove yourself from said search results, and to prevent your site from ever being crawled in the first place. What's actually happening here is that news media orgs were in a huge bubble because of the advent of the internet, and they've failed to monetize effectively. So they're looking for a revenue source to shore up their failed model, and they know they'd lose revenue if they removed themselves from search results.
  - blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
    I think you’re ignoring that there is a path to getting to users/customers for many types of products like news, which are the tightly controlled platforms of giant tech companies (Google, Meta, etc), and there isn’t viability for products like news unless they play ball with these big tech companies. It’s not that they haven’t monetized effectively, but rather that there are gatekeepers in the way with no real competition, who can steal your margin by showing part of your news story. All of this is really a classic problem of anti-trust, and what a monopoly is today is different from the past but we haven’t acknowledged this properly in my view.
    - freedomben 2y ago
      If that's true (and I agree that it is), then charging for links is going to make it even worse and effectively cement that reality for all time. How is a startup who can't afford to pay employees, let alone publishers, supposed to come by and provide some alternative? Possibly perhaps, the big publishers (with deep pockets and lobbyists) really like this approach because despite entrenching big tech, it erects formidable barriers to entry for new upstart competitors to them? Regulatory capture is a tried and true tactic for industries that reach a certain size. IMHO society is a lot better off trying to prevent summarization efforts (that eliminate the need for the user to visit the page) than they are trying to charge for links. The latter is something that benefits everyone regardless of size. I'm not necessarily in favor of doing that either (would need to think it through a lot more, because it would essentially legislate a worse user experience, which is not something to be done without serious deliberation), but it seems like a much more relevant fight to have and one that isn't so self-serving.
Manuel_D 2y ago
Well, yeah it is a bad idea. Because if you tax links to your content Google will just stop linking to your content. Which is exactly what they're poised to do, as per TFA.
- datavirtue 2y ago
  If you want less of something, tax it.
  - giuseppe_petri 2y ago
    Or provide a better alternative. Less stick, more carrot.
- willsmith72 2y ago
  Or is this is all just bargaining and leverage before they make a deal, as they have elsewhere in the world

> Charging a fee just for linking to something is a bad idea. If you're profiting from it, it's not a bad idea.

CalRobert 2y ago

If I run a newsletter that links to interesting properties for sale, should I be charged a fee for this?

timothyduong 2y ago
Maybe if your newsletter gets billions of subscribers and you’re making stacks from it, according to news outlets, yes

bko 2y ago

Aren’t you providing marketing to the newspaper? Isn’t that what these news agencies pay google billions for? There’s a whole industry (seo) designed around getting your site linked. This looks like a money grab to me. What am I missing?

Zak 2y ago

Why? What moral or legal principle entitles someone to compensation for linking to their website whether or not you're profiting from that? It's a different question when there's an excerpt or machine-generated summary. In that case, copyright applies, and in most jurisdictions it may or may not be fair use depending on what is copied and how it is presented.

bloppe 2y ago

It's actually still a bad idea, because nobody will link to you

estebarb 2y ago

In that case Google should pay everyone they link to, not just the ones with politician friends that can lobby for themselves. If they don't want a Google to index them they can use robots.txt to prevent it.

jtriangle 2y ago
Exactly. If google showing your site in search results is a problem, it's trivial to remove yourself from said search results, and to prevent your site from ever being crawled in the first place. What's actually happening here is that news media orgs were in a huge bubble because of the advent of the internet, and they've failed to monetize effectively. So they're looking for a revenue source to shore up their failed model, and they know they'd lose revenue if they removed themselves from search results.
- blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
  I think you’re ignoring that there is a path to getting to users/customers for many types of products like news, which are the tightly controlled platforms of giant tech companies (Google, Meta, etc), and there isn’t viability for products like news unless they play ball with these big tech companies. It’s not that they haven’t monetized effectively, but rather that there are gatekeepers in the way with no real competition, who can steal your margin by showing part of your news story. All of this is really a classic problem of anti-trust, and what a monopoly is today is different from the past but we haven’t acknowledged this properly in my view.
  - freedomben 2y ago
    If that's true (and I agree that it is), then charging for links is going to make it even worse and effectively cement that reality for all time. How is a startup who can't afford to pay employees, let alone publishers, supposed to come by and provide some alternative? Possibly perhaps, the big publishers (with deep pockets and lobbyists) really like this approach because despite entrenching big tech, it erects formidable barriers to entry for new upstart competitors to them? Regulatory capture is a tried and true tactic for industries that reach a certain size. IMHO society is a lot better off trying to prevent summarization efforts (that eliminate the need for the user to visit the page) than they are trying to charge for links. The latter is something that benefits everyone regardless of size. I'm not necessarily in favor of doing that either (would need to think it through a lot more, because it would essentially legislate a worse user experience, which is not something to be done without serious deliberation), but it seems like a much more relevant fight to have and one that isn't so self-serving.

Manuel_D 2y ago

Well, yeah it is a bad idea. Because if you tax links to your content Google will just stop linking to your content. Which is exactly what they're poised to do, as per TFA.

datavirtue 2y ago
If you want less of something, tax it.
- giuseppe_petri 2y ago
  Or provide a better alternative. Less stick, more carrot.
willsmith72 2y ago
Or is this is all just bargaining and leverage before they make a deal, as they have elsewhere in the world