3 ms·

Who do you expect to pay for journalism?

by Symbiote 2mo ago

tgv 2mo ago
Jeff Bezos, probably. The internet really is the death of quality journalism, and democracy slowly dies with it.
- randomNumber7 2mo ago
  Slowly?
  - inigyou 2mo ago
    We're still in the denial phase.
- thaumasiotes 2mo ago
  > The internet really is the death of quality journalism At every level of quality, there is more journalism than there was before.
  - acdha 2mo ago
    There used to be journalists in every town or city working for local newspapers back when ad revenue stayed local. Don’t confuse the success of a handful of top journals with the health of the field. > In 1990 we had one daily news(paper) journalist for every 4,490 Americans. Now (or 2019 to be exact), we have one such reporter per 14,250. https://www.reportforamerica.org/2021/06/28/the-journalist-population/ https://www.reportforamerica.org/2021/06/28/the-journalist-p...
    - thaumasiotes 2mo ago
      > Don’t confuse the success of a handful of top journals with the health of the field. You appear to be confusing the health of a certain class of employment with the health of the product people in that class used to produce.
  - tgv 2mo ago
    That's false. I have a 20-odd year old newspaper in a drawer, and it contains so much more news about the world than today's paper. Even national politics is only covered when it's click-bait worthy. Economy? Just a little bit. Foreign politics? Perhaps in a neighboring country when there's an election or something; otherwise, forget it. But its science, art and human interest sections are still comparable. Those don't feed democracy, though.
    - thaumasiotes 2mo ago
      > That's false. I have a 20-odd year old newspaper in a drawer, and it contains so much more news about the world than today's paper. Do you think that journalism can't exist outside of a newspaper?
muragekibicho 2mo ago
It's all so bizarre. They don't want to pay but expect in-depth articles. It's akin somewhat to the open-source crowd demanding features (and security updates) all without donating to the project.
- haunter 2mo ago
  > They don't want to pay but expect in-depth articles. You are putting words in my mouth I've never said. I don't "expect in-depth articles", HN would be perfectly fine without paywalled content.
- inigyou 2mo ago
  No, we just expect them not to be posted on link aggregators like HN. Because they are useless links for 99% of readers. Did you know that video game piracy enhances video game sales? That's because if someone pirates a game and likes it, they might buy it, recommend it to friends, or buy the next one.
- rounce 2mo ago
  When you say "open-source crowd demanding features (and security updates) all without donating to the project" are you referring to the profitable companies who massively benefit from FOSS but don't contribute in any way back to the projects they leverage?
aziaziazi 2mo ago
Google, serving adds to the article reader? Adds are annoying, but we’re free to leave if we don’t like how a website is managed. I personally loves the way HN pages are served as they are loading very fast even on not-high end devices, and volunteers contributes to the content (comments). Paywall are annoying and there’s always someone that post an archive link to circumvent it but I’m not sure about the ethic of a rule requiring to do so.
- Symbiote 2mo ago
  The other front-page item on HN is Firefox's continued support for Ublock Origin. HN readers are also free to pass on an article they can't read. Sometimes I do this when a US website has a complete block on Europe.
graemep 2mo ago
Paying for individual publications you like is fine. Paying for all the publications that get articles on the HN front page would be very expensive. Only a minority of people reading HN would have subscribed to any one publication. The result is that paywalled articles can only be properly discussed by a minority people. It also encourages discussion of the headline instead of the article.
- acdha 2mo ago
  That still seems better than saying that we have a right to use other people’s work on our terms. People used to subscribe to multiple magazines and that paid for a lot of journalists.
boesboes 2mo ago
No one should be paying for this journalism. Calling wired journalism is a stretch, it’s more a blogspam ad farm site

Who do you expect to pay for journalism?

tgv 2mo ago

Jeff Bezos, probably. The internet really is the death of quality journalism, and democracy slowly dies with it.

randomNumber7 2mo ago
Slowly?
- inigyou 2mo ago
  We're still in the denial phase.
thaumasiotes 2mo ago
> The internet really is the death of quality journalism At every level of quality, there is more journalism than there was before.
- acdha 2mo ago
  There used to be journalists in every town or city working for local newspapers back when ad revenue stayed local. Don’t confuse the success of a handful of top journals with the health of the field. > In 1990 we had one daily news(paper) journalist for every 4,490 Americans. Now (or 2019 to be exact), we have one such reporter per 14,250. https://www.reportforamerica.org/2021/06/28/the-journalist-population/ https://www.reportforamerica.org/2021/06/28/the-journalist-p...
  - thaumasiotes 2mo ago
    > Don’t confuse the success of a handful of top journals with the health of the field. You appear to be confusing the health of a certain class of employment with the health of the product people in that class used to produce.
- tgv 2mo ago
  That's false. I have a 20-odd year old newspaper in a drawer, and it contains so much more news about the world than today's paper. Even national politics is only covered when it's click-bait worthy. Economy? Just a little bit. Foreign politics? Perhaps in a neighboring country when there's an election or something; otherwise, forget it. But its science, art and human interest sections are still comparable. Those don't feed democracy, though.
  - thaumasiotes 2mo ago
    > That's false. I have a 20-odd year old newspaper in a drawer, and it contains so much more news about the world than today's paper. Do you think that journalism can't exist outside of a newspaper?

muragekibicho 2mo ago

It's all so bizarre. They don't want to pay but expect in-depth articles. It's akin somewhat to the open-source crowd demanding features (and security updates) all without donating to the project.

haunter 2mo ago
> They don't want to pay but expect in-depth articles. You are putting words in my mouth I've never said. I don't "expect in-depth articles", HN would be perfectly fine without paywalled content.
inigyou 2mo ago
No, we just expect them not to be posted on link aggregators like HN. Because they are useless links for 99% of readers. Did you know that video game piracy enhances video game sales? That's because if someone pirates a game and likes it, they might buy it, recommend it to friends, or buy the next one.
rounce 2mo ago
When you say "open-source crowd demanding features (and security updates) all without donating to the project" are you referring to the profitable companies who massively benefit from FOSS but don't contribute in any way back to the projects they leverage?

aziaziazi 2mo ago

Google, serving adds to the article reader? Adds are annoying, but we’re free to leave if we don’t like how a website is managed. I personally loves the way HN pages are served as they are loading very fast even on not-high end devices, and volunteers contributes to the content (comments). Paywall are annoying and there’s always someone that post an archive link to circumvent it but I’m not sure about the ethic of a rule requiring to do so.

Symbiote 2mo ago
The other front-page item on HN is Firefox's continued support for Ublock Origin. HN readers are also free to pass on an article they can't read. Sometimes I do this when a US website has a complete block on Europe.

graemep 2mo ago

Paying for individual publications you like is fine. Paying for all the publications that get articles on the HN front page would be very expensive. Only a minority of people reading HN would have subscribed to any one publication. The result is that paywalled articles can only be properly discussed by a minority people. It also encourages discussion of the headline instead of the article.

acdha 2mo ago
That still seems better than saying that we have a right to use other people’s work on our terms. People used to subscribe to multiple magazines and that paid for a lot of journalists.

boesboes 2mo ago

No one should be paying for this journalism. Calling wired journalism is a stretch, it’s more a blogspam ad farm site