5 ms·

Paid news is unsustainable. News has always been free. The newspaper was a package deal, largely paid for by advertising, and consumers only forked over a litt

by rickmb 14y ago

Paid news is unsustainable. News has always been free. The newspaper was a package deal, largely paid for by advertising, and consumers only forked over a little bit of money for the convenience. And now that raw news has been disintermediated, there's even less reason to pay for "news". Newspapers have already lost other things of value in their "package deal" (personal ads etcetera) because they couldn't be bothered to really go online. And most of them have completely sacrificed their credibility as watchdogs for political and commercial gain. News has zero market value. News happens. Newspapers are an outdated concept, and it's valuable parts have already been monetized by others.

grey-area 14y ago
Reliable reports of news from a trusted source continue to have market value (quality info has rarely been free), and people continue to pay for them. Also good journalists often produce articles on trending topics which sometimes take weeks to complete and a lot of research. These things can be done by anyone, but they are hardly worthless and require investing time and money - producing good journalism takes a huge amount of time and effort, and the ignorance of crowds and free spread of rumours is hardly a fair substitute. The internet has of course disrupted a lot of the news industry (for the better), and printed papers will soon be gone, but that doesn't make quality news and analysis any less valuable.
- brc 14y ago
  This is true, but assembling news is peanuts compared to assembling operating systems in terms of time necessary. And lots of people like to write operating systems for free. That's because interesting work has a non-monetary reward built in. Lots of bloggers write well researched and very interesting topics essentially for free. I agree the ignorance of crowds and the free spread of rumors is not substitute for quality information and analysis, but I don't necessarily agree a monolithic newspaper is the only way to get it. Newspapers were all about owning the distribution channel. Now that is gone, so the newspapers themselves will go.
revorad 14y ago
Well, that's what most of us here believe obviously. But are you betting against the Oracle of Omaha?
- asto 14y ago
  The Oracle of Omaha doesn't bet on tech because he knows he doesn't understand it. His money has been made by only investing in businesses he fully understands. I think he would think of "free news" differently if he had a better understanding of technology.
  - revorad 14y ago
    But that's exactly what is interesting about his investment in newspapers. He generally stays away from stuff he doesn't understand. If he's betting on something that seems so obviously dead because of competition with tech, then I'd like to believe there's something valuable there.
    - antidoh 14y ago
      At some point, the world will move away from the understanding of Buffet.
      - dagw 14y ago
        But he'll have been dead for years by then
  - Kaizyn 14y ago
    News is only free because the newspapers got into a war for eyeballs on the Internet. It is only now after they've had their businesses decimated that they realize that free content wasn't such a wise move on their part. There certainly isn't anything about free news that makes it a competitive advantage. If anything, it actually hurts them economically because they're giving away their product for nothing. No one sane runs a business on driving an increase in traffic.
epscylonb 14y ago
There is value in aggregation, and more specifically curation. This is essentially what paper news does at the moment, and people are willing to pay for it.
mathattack 14y ago
True. And there are very many free print newspapers too that attest to your point on bundling.
astrec 14y ago
I find myself inclined to pay for news because just about all of the freely available opinion dressed up as news and/or analysis is complete tosh, and aggregators only get you so far. To wit, I fork over my hard earned for a copy of the FT 6 days a week, and would gladly do so to access HN.
- shane_armstrong 14y ago
  I would also more than happily pay for hacker news, but since it's free and user submitted I think it is a different case. Perhaps there should be a general news site where the users submit the news articles themselves, it would probably be faster than the ACTUAL news companies who have to send out a reported, as opposed to a civilian on the streets witnessing it happen. (Of course, then the news corporations would leech off the site.)
  - astrec 14y ago
    Bronwen Clune attempted something like that a few years ago with a company called Norg Media http://www.crunchbase.com/company/norg-media http://www.crunchbase.com/company/norg-media - there have been others too, of course, but no one has managed to get particularly far.
    - shane_armstrong 14y ago
      It would require a lot of development time I think and I really think it's a great idea, especially to get there (in the public eye anyway) first, but I am only 2 months or so away from finishing a project my team is working on, seeing how quickly ideas expire on the internet it will be taken or obsolete by the time I have the free time.

by rickmb 14y ago

grey-area 14y ago

Reliable reports of news from a trusted source continue to have market value (quality info has rarely been free), and people continue to pay for them. Also good journalists often produce articles on trending topics which sometimes take weeks to complete and a lot of research. These things can be done by anyone, but they are hardly worthless and require investing time and money - producing good journalism takes a huge amount of time and effort, and the ignorance of crowds and free spread of rumours is hardly a fair substitute. The internet has of course disrupted a lot of the news industry (for the better), and printed papers will soon be gone, but that doesn't make quality news and analysis any less valuable.

brc 14y ago
This is true, but assembling news is peanuts compared to assembling operating systems in terms of time necessary. And lots of people like to write operating systems for free. That's because interesting work has a non-monetary reward built in. Lots of bloggers write well researched and very interesting topics essentially for free. I agree the ignorance of crowds and the free spread of rumors is not substitute for quality information and analysis, but I don't necessarily agree a monolithic newspaper is the only way to get it. Newspapers were all about owning the distribution channel. Now that is gone, so the newspapers themselves will go.

revorad 14y ago

Well, that's what most of us here believe obviously. But are you betting against the Oracle of Omaha?

asto 14y ago
The Oracle of Omaha doesn't bet on tech because he knows he doesn't understand it. His money has been made by only investing in businesses he fully understands. I think he would think of "free news" differently if he had a better understanding of technology.
- revorad 14y ago
  But that's exactly what is interesting about his investment in newspapers. He generally stays away from stuff he doesn't understand. If he's betting on something that seems so obviously dead because of competition with tech, then I'd like to believe there's something valuable there.
  - antidoh 14y ago
    At some point, the world will move away from the understanding of Buffet.
    - dagw 14y ago
      But he'll have been dead for years by then
- Kaizyn 14y ago
  News is only free because the newspapers got into a war for eyeballs on the Internet. It is only now after they've had their businesses decimated that they realize that free content wasn't such a wise move on their part. There certainly isn't anything about free news that makes it a competitive advantage. If anything, it actually hurts them economically because they're giving away their product for nothing. No one sane runs a business on driving an increase in traffic.

epscylonb 14y ago

There is value in aggregation, and more specifically curation. This is essentially what paper news does at the moment, and people are willing to pay for it.

mathattack 14y ago

True. And there are very many free print newspapers too that attest to your point on bundling.

astrec 14y ago

I find myself inclined to pay for news because just about all of the freely available opinion dressed up as news and/or analysis is complete tosh, and aggregators only get you so far. To wit, I fork over my hard earned for a copy of the FT 6 days a week, and would gladly do so to access HN.

shane_armstrong 14y ago
I would also more than happily pay for hacker news, but since it's free and user submitted I think it is a different case. Perhaps there should be a general news site where the users submit the news articles themselves, it would probably be faster than the ACTUAL news companies who have to send out a reported, as opposed to a civilian on the streets witnessing it happen. (Of course, then the news corporations would leech off the site.)
- astrec 14y ago
  Bronwen Clune attempted something like that a few years ago with a company called Norg Media http://www.crunchbase.com/company/norg-media http://www.crunchbase.com/company/norg-media - there have been others too, of course, but no one has managed to get particularly far.
  - shane_armstrong 14y ago
    It would require a lot of development time I think and I really think it's a great idea, especially to get there (in the public eye anyway) first, but I am only 2 months or so away from finishing a project my team is working on, seeing how quickly ideas expire on the internet it will be taken or obsolete by the time I have the free time.