11 ms·

Well, if people would fucking pay for content, these conflicts wouldn't happen. However, people have largely decided not to pay for content. I personally don't

Well, if people would fucking pay for content, these conflicts wouldn't happen. However, people have largely decided not to pay for content. I personally don't pay for content very often, I also don't expect unbiased journalism from buzzfeed.

Ollinson 12y ago
I do pay for content. I pay for The New York Times, The Economist, American Scientist, Lapham's Quarterly, Nautilus and The New York Review of Books. I encourage Buzzfeed to put up a paywall. They will find out quickly how little people value their low quality content.
- peteretep 12y ago
  I pay for NYT and The Spectator, used to pay for The Economist. Pretty sure the speccie was the only one that didn't continue to blast me with ads anyway
- patrickaljord 12y ago
  > I encourage Buzzfeed to put up a paywall. They will find out quickly how little people value their low quality content Has it occured to you that people reading Buzzfeed probably don't have the money to subscribe to any media in general and are probably more interested in Buzzfeed than the NYT or The Economist? Some people enjoy Buzzfeed and the fact that it's free, nothing wrong with that.
pbreit 12y ago
Paying for content is pretty much idiotic. You want your content to spread, it costs zero to spread, and so hanging some ads around it is by far the most effective way to monetize.
- Ollinson 12y ago
  Relying on ad revenue is exactly how buzzfeed got into this mess.
  - pbreit 12y ago
    What mess? The article confirmed that it's pretty much a non-issue. Only 3 out of more than 1,000 removals had anything to do with advertisers and at least 2 of those 3 were legitimate take-downs and probably the 3rd one, too.
wtallis 12y ago
People aren't paying for content. But extrapolating that to say that they're unwilling to pay for content is a bit of a stretch, given the unwillingness of content producers to offer ad-free access at a fair market price, and the lack of an easy payments system to process such small transactions.
- manigandham 12y ago
  I work in the online advertising space. Unwilling is probably an understatement. Although "people" shell out tons of money on casual/social Facebook games and such, they are incredibly price sensitive to content like news or videos. They also use AdBlock to basically steal content without letting publishers recoup the production costs and other investments. I've spoken to and worked with several major publisher networks over the years that have tried various solutions with subscriptions but every attempt has led to a massive backlash or drop in traffic as users would rather go elsewhere then pay to read. Just look at how much negative feelings there are towards paywalls or any site that requires membership. There have been trials already by Google to solve for this but the original idea with Google Wallet [1] failed and they're now trying out the Contributor program [2] but still having trouble. [1] http://www.digitaltrends.com/web/google-launches-micropayments-for-web-content/ http://www.digitaltrends.com/web/google-launches-micropaymen... [2] https://www.google.com/contributor/welcome/ https://www.google.com/contributor/welcome/
  - megablast 12y ago
    > Although "people" shell out tons of money on casual/social Facebook games and such, they are incredibly price sensitive to content like news or videos. Most of the money made in these causal games are by big whales, you will not get that in media.
  - taspeotis 12y ago
    > They also use AdBlock to basically steal content I'm a thief for protecting my PC from malware? From here [0]: > Some Huffington Post readers fell victim to malicious advertisements spread through Google's DoubleClick network [0] http://arstechnica.com/security/2015/04/faked-flash-based-ads-on-huffpo-other-sites-downloaded-extortionware/ http://arstechnica.com/security/2015/04/faked-flash-based-ad...
learnstats2 12y ago
News International requires payment and then shows just as many ads and appears just as influenced by advertising dollar, if not more.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
cafard 12y ago
A comment above refers to problems at The Daily Telegraph, which one can (I assume) buy at news stands. Among the items mentioned in the comment is the carrying of propaganda supplements from the Russian and Chinese governments. I do pay for home delivery of The Washington Post, and I have received copies enough of "Russia Today" with it, though I can't say I've read them.
jkestner 12y ago
Relevant interview with the Economist's guy in charge of digital (overall a fascinating examination of how they're evolving): http://www.niemanlab.org/2015/04/the-economists-tom-standage-on-digital-strategy-and-the-limits-of-a-model-based-on-advertising/ http://www.niemanlab.org/2015/04/the-economists-tom-standage... The Economist has taken the view that advertising is nice, and we’ll certainly take money where we can get it, but we’re pretty much expecting it to go away. So a majority of our revenue comes from subscriptions, and always has. The proportion of revenue that’s coming from subscriptions is going up, and will probably continue to go up. So I’m very very happy that that’s our business model, because I think that’s sustainable. People do seem willing to pay for our journalism, and our digital subscriber numbers are going up very nicely.
jarnix 12y ago
To complete your "fucking" sentence ;) I was working for a complete different company who is publishing a very famous fashion magazine, and although the magazine was not free, it was obviously biased by the advertisers, I mean an article could be removed or even not written if the advertiser did not ...advertise, even though there was a story to write.

Ollinson 12y ago

I do pay for content. I pay for The New York Times, The Economist, American Scientist, Lapham's Quarterly, Nautilus and The New York Review of Books. I encourage Buzzfeed to put up a paywall. They will find out quickly how little people value their low quality content.

peteretep 12y ago
I pay for NYT and The Spectator, used to pay for The Economist. Pretty sure the speccie was the only one that didn't continue to blast me with ads anyway
patrickaljord 12y ago
> I encourage Buzzfeed to put up a paywall. They will find out quickly how little people value their low quality content Has it occured to you that people reading Buzzfeed probably don't have the money to subscribe to any media in general and are probably more interested in Buzzfeed than the NYT or The Economist? Some people enjoy Buzzfeed and the fact that it's free, nothing wrong with that.

pbreit 12y ago

Paying for content is pretty much idiotic. You want your content to spread, it costs zero to spread, and so hanging some ads around it is by far the most effective way to monetize.

Ollinson 12y ago
Relying on ad revenue is exactly how buzzfeed got into this mess.
- pbreit 12y ago
  What mess? The article confirmed that it's pretty much a non-issue. Only 3 out of more than 1,000 removals had anything to do with advertisers and at least 2 of those 3 were legitimate take-downs and probably the 3rd one, too.

wtallis 12y ago

People aren't paying for content. But extrapolating that to say that they're unwilling to pay for content is a bit of a stretch, given the unwillingness of content producers to offer ad-free access at a fair market price, and the lack of an easy payments system to process such small transactions.

manigandham 12y ago
I work in the online advertising space. Unwilling is probably an understatement. Although "people" shell out tons of money on casual/social Facebook games and such, they are incredibly price sensitive to content like news or videos. They also use AdBlock to basically steal content without letting publishers recoup the production costs and other investments. I've spoken to and worked with several major publisher networks over the years that have tried various solutions with subscriptions but every attempt has led to a massive backlash or drop in traffic as users would rather go elsewhere then pay to read. Just look at how much negative feelings there are towards paywalls or any site that requires membership. There have been trials already by Google to solve for this but the original idea with Google Wallet [1] failed and they're now trying out the Contributor program [2] but still having trouble. [1] http://www.digitaltrends.com/web/google-launches-micropayments-for-web-content/ http://www.digitaltrends.com/web/google-launches-micropaymen... [2] https://www.google.com/contributor/welcome/ https://www.google.com/contributor/welcome/
- megablast 12y ago
  > Although "people" shell out tons of money on casual/social Facebook games and such, they are incredibly price sensitive to content like news or videos. Most of the money made in these causal games are by big whales, you will not get that in media.
- taspeotis 12y ago
  > They also use AdBlock to basically steal content I'm a thief for protecting my PC from malware? From here [0]: > Some Huffington Post readers fell victim to malicious advertisements spread through Google's DoubleClick network [0] http://arstechnica.com/security/2015/04/faked-flash-based-ads-on-huffpo-other-sites-downloaded-extortionware/ http://arstechnica.com/security/2015/04/faked-flash-based-ad...

learnstats2 12y ago

News International requires payment and then shows just as many ads and appears just as influenced by advertising dollar, if not more.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

cafard 12y ago

A comment above refers to problems at The Daily Telegraph, which one can (I assume) buy at news stands. Among the items mentioned in the comment is the carrying of propaganda supplements from the Russian and Chinese governments. I do pay for home delivery of The Washington Post, and I have received copies enough of "Russia Today" with it, though I can't say I've read them.

jkestner 12y ago

Relevant interview with the Economist's guy in charge of digital (overall a fascinating examination of how they're evolving): http://www.niemanlab.org/2015/04/the-economists-tom-standage-on-digital-strategy-and-the-limits-of-a-model-based-on-advertising/ http://www.niemanlab.org/2015/04/the-economists-tom-standage... The Economist has taken the view that advertising is nice, and we’ll certainly take money where we can get it, but we’re pretty much expecting it to go away. So a majority of our revenue comes from subscriptions, and always has. The proportion of revenue that’s coming from subscriptions is going up, and will probably continue to go up. So I’m very very happy that that’s our business model, because I think that’s sustainable. People do seem willing to pay for our journalism, and our digital subscriber numbers are going up very nicely.

jarnix 12y ago

To complete your "fucking" sentence ;) I was working for a complete different company who is publishing a very famous fashion magazine, and although the magazine was not free, it was obviously biased by the advertisers, I mean an article could be removed or even not written if the advertiser did not ...advertise, even though there was a story to write.