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> Look at an area that "cheap" has destroyed: the Internet. The Internet is full of crap. Ironically, people used the exact same argument against the printing

> Look at an area that "cheap" has destroyed: the Internet. The Internet is full of crap. Ironically, people used the exact same argument against the printing press and pretty much every single development in publishing. Remember when the gramophone destroyed the live performance? When TV killed theatre? All of those developments lowered the price of production and/or distribution radically, and allowed the production of new cheap crap, but did not kill the incumbent as predicted. The same is true today. Before the Internet, you would probably be subscribing to a newspaper, probably at quite high expense. If you limited yourself to free reading, you would only get crap - as true then as now. If the traditional newspaper is largely irrelevant, there's a large and healthy selection of paid-for journalism out there, just get out your wallet. I'm a fan of The Economist, but that's far from the only selection.

rayiner 12y ago
That makes it seem like quality is a given in the face of market changes. I don't think that's true. I remember back 10 years ago, the Internet was actually useful. You could search for a product review and not get a bunch of computer-generated crap SEO optimized to turn up at the top. That's not true any longer. Increased competition has had a negative effect on the media. Go watch CNN clips from the 1980's and compare to today. Its a totally different product than CNN today, and it was possible because they were insulated from the degrading effects of market competition. They didn't have to plaster Kim Kardashians rack over every piece in order to make money, like they do today. And what's driving that competition? Lowest common denominator Internet media like Huff Po that can churn out dreck at zero marginal cost.
- chaostheory 12y ago
  > I remember back 10 years ago, the Internet was actually useful. You could search for a product review and not get a bunch of computer-generated crap SEO optimized to turn up at the top. It's still pretty useful. I just use Amazon for reviews instead of Google now. ;)
  - rayiner 12y ago
    User generated reviews are among the most useless things on the Internet. The SNR is unspeakably awful. I don't pay any attention to ratings on Amazon, etc. I wait for a detailed review by Ars, Anand, Tom, etc, or the equivalent for products in another field.
    - chaostheory 12y ago
      How is it useless? Yes there are a lot of crappy one or two sentence reviews, but there are plenty of useful ones as well. Consumer Reports doesn't have the resources to review everything and neither do outlets like CNET.
      - rayiner 12y ago
        User reviews are highly skewed towards those with extreme experiences and often based on undisclosed idiosyncrasies. Users post a bad review after one negative experience, and there are many Amazon reviews where it doesn't even appear to be the case that the person has actually used the product. Creating a valuable review actually requires a systematic approach. Take, for example, a review of a cell phone's battery life. Such reviews are useless without disclosure of your usage patterns, whether you're in a good signal or bad signal area, whether you like to jack up the brightness to 100%, etc. And aggregating a bunch of shoddy reviews can't compare to one good one.
        chaostheory 12y ago
        > User reviews are highly skewed towards those with extreme experiences and often based on undisclosed idiosyncrasies. Users post a bad review after one negative experience, and there are many Amazon reviews where it doesn't even appear to be the case that the person has actually used the product. Typically the greater the number of consumer reviews will offset this problem. Again, some information is better than no information. > And aggregating a bunch of shoddy reviews can't compare to one good one. As you've already mentioned, many people can discern bad reviews from good ones. It's not perfect but it's better than nothing.
- mseebach 12y ago
  You're idealising CNN in the 80s. One important milestone in their early history was broadcasting live the explosion of space shuttle Challenger. During the first gulf war, we got live footage of missiles hitting their targets. That's technologically fantastic, but in terms of journalistic value, it's just one, small step above Kim Kardashian. CNN is widely credited with inventing and pushing the 24 hour news cycle, driving the subdivision of news into every smaller and ever less important chunks, incessantly valuing speed over depth. "You heard it here first!" - well, who the h... cares? Anyway, my point, which I don't feel you meaningfully addressed was that once you get out your wallet, every newsstand out there are piled high with magazines and weeklies dedicated to every conceivable topic, many of them high quality (and many of them, admittedly, not!), plenty of them completely devoid of Kardashian-themed content. Just go buy them instead of lamenting that your free entertainment is worth exactly what you paid for it.
  - rayiner 12y ago
    I think coverage of the Challenger explosion is way above the Kardashians. And I'm not idealizing it based on recollection. Try actually watching some old broadcasts. It's the difference between the Internet circa 2001 and the Internet circa 2014 (it's a lot easier to hide crap content beneath flash and dynamic JS widgets than it is to do the same in plain text). My point which you're ignoring is that the existence of competition from the crap forces legitimate media down market. For the cost of a cable subscription, CNN is a lot crappier than it was 20 years ago.
cbr 12y ago
Remember when the gramophone destroyed the live performance? The gramophone, and recorded music in general, did destroy the live performance. People listen to much less music live, even as they listen to more music overall. It's also much harder to make a living as a mid-level professional musician even as the few at the top make millions. That said, I do think these are positive changes: excellent music in huge varieties is much more widely available than in pre-recording days. (The aspect of the change that makes me most ambivalent is its effect on people making their own music. When you can't just turn on music--music far better than you're able to create--people sing for themselves and each other. People still sing some, but most are now embarrassed to sing in front of others. You're basically supposed to be ashamed of your singing ability.)
ColinCera 12y ago
Those prior arguments are hardly "the exact same" and at any rate the fact that people have previously made similar arguments about other forms of technology says absolutely nothing about the merits of the present argument about a new technology. But I do agree with you that it's not legitimate to expect content to be both free (advertising supported) and high quality. It's wonderful when it happens, but people can't really complain when it doesn't, much less complain not only about the quality of the content but also the quality of the advertising. If people want high-quality content carefully selected by human editors and presented in attractive ways then they should pay for it.

rayiner 12y ago

That makes it seem like quality is a given in the face of market changes. I don't think that's true. I remember back 10 years ago, the Internet was actually useful. You could search for a product review and not get a bunch of computer-generated crap SEO optimized to turn up at the top. That's not true any longer. Increased competition has had a negative effect on the media. Go watch CNN clips from the 1980's and compare to today. Its a totally different product than CNN today, and it was possible because they were insulated from the degrading effects of market competition. They didn't have to plaster Kim Kardashians rack over every piece in order to make money, like they do today. And what's driving that competition? Lowest common denominator Internet media like Huff Po that can churn out dreck at zero marginal cost.

chaostheory 12y ago
> I remember back 10 years ago, the Internet was actually useful. You could search for a product review and not get a bunch of computer-generated crap SEO optimized to turn up at the top. It's still pretty useful. I just use Amazon for reviews instead of Google now. ;)
- rayiner 12y ago
  User generated reviews are among the most useless things on the Internet. The SNR is unspeakably awful. I don't pay any attention to ratings on Amazon, etc. I wait for a detailed review by Ars, Anand, Tom, etc, or the equivalent for products in another field.
  - chaostheory 12y ago
    How is it useless? Yes there are a lot of crappy one or two sentence reviews, but there are plenty of useful ones as well. Consumer Reports doesn't have the resources to review everything and neither do outlets like CNET.
    - rayiner 12y ago
      User reviews are highly skewed towards those with extreme experiences and often based on undisclosed idiosyncrasies. Users post a bad review after one negative experience, and there are many Amazon reviews where it doesn't even appear to be the case that the person has actually used the product. Creating a valuable review actually requires a systematic approach. Take, for example, a review of a cell phone's battery life. Such reviews are useless without disclosure of your usage patterns, whether you're in a good signal or bad signal area, whether you like to jack up the brightness to 100%, etc. And aggregating a bunch of shoddy reviews can't compare to one good one.
      - chaostheory 12y ago
        > User reviews are highly skewed towards those with extreme experiences and often based on undisclosed idiosyncrasies. Users post a bad review after one negative experience, and there are many Amazon reviews where it doesn't even appear to be the case that the person has actually used the product. Typically the greater the number of consumer reviews will offset this problem. Again, some information is better than no information. > And aggregating a bunch of shoddy reviews can't compare to one good one. As you've already mentioned, many people can discern bad reviews from good ones. It's not perfect but it's better than nothing.
mseebach 12y ago
You're idealising CNN in the 80s. One important milestone in their early history was broadcasting live the explosion of space shuttle Challenger. During the first gulf war, we got live footage of missiles hitting their targets. That's technologically fantastic, but in terms of journalistic value, it's just one, small step above Kim Kardashian. CNN is widely credited with inventing and pushing the 24 hour news cycle, driving the subdivision of news into every smaller and ever less important chunks, incessantly valuing speed over depth. "You heard it here first!" - well, who the h... cares? Anyway, my point, which I don't feel you meaningfully addressed was that once you get out your wallet, every newsstand out there are piled high with magazines and weeklies dedicated to every conceivable topic, many of them high quality (and many of them, admittedly, not!), plenty of them completely devoid of Kardashian-themed content. Just go buy them instead of lamenting that your free entertainment is worth exactly what you paid for it.
- rayiner 12y ago
  I think coverage of the Challenger explosion is way above the Kardashians. And I'm not idealizing it based on recollection. Try actually watching some old broadcasts. It's the difference between the Internet circa 2001 and the Internet circa 2014 (it's a lot easier to hide crap content beneath flash and dynamic JS widgets than it is to do the same in plain text). My point which you're ignoring is that the existence of competition from the crap forces legitimate media down market. For the cost of a cable subscription, CNN is a lot crappier than it was 20 years ago.

cbr 12y ago

Remember when the gramophone destroyed the live performance? The gramophone, and recorded music in general, did destroy the live performance. People listen to much less music live, even as they listen to more music overall. It's also much harder to make a living as a mid-level professional musician even as the few at the top make millions. That said, I do think these are positive changes: excellent music in huge varieties is much more widely available than in pre-recording days. (The aspect of the change that makes me most ambivalent is its effect on people making their own music. When you can't just turn on music--music far better than you're able to create--people sing for themselves and each other. People still sing some, but most are now embarrassed to sing in front of others. You're basically supposed to be ashamed of your singing ability.)

ColinCera 12y ago

Those prior arguments are hardly "the exact same" and at any rate the fact that people have previously made similar arguments about other forms of technology says absolutely nothing about the merits of the present argument about a new technology. But I do agree with you that it's not legitimate to expect content to be both free (advertising supported) and high quality. It's wonderful when it happens, but people can't really complain when it doesn't, much less complain not only about the quality of the content but also the quality of the advertising. If people want high-quality content carefully selected by human editors and presented in attractive ways then they should pay for it.