Re:DNAinfo and Gothamist Are Shutting Down
by look_lookatme on Thursday November 02, 2017 @06:54PM
(#15615096)
DNAinfo was never profitable in its 8 year existence. With the union taking root it was probably never going to see a return.
In my opinion the only unethical thing here was taking down the archives. Total severance seemed fine.
Re:DNAinfo and Gothamist Are Shutting Down
by berberous on Thursday November 02, 2017 @08:13PM
(#15615597)
What about Gothamist? I would bet it was profitable since it was run independently for a long time. It was a glorified blog — lots of reprinting Post articles rather than the independent reporting that DNA Info did, so I imagine it had much lower costs.
This tweet by someone who appears to have written for Gothamist claims that "Gothamist actually WAS profitable. DNAInfo wasn't."
Re:DNAinfo and Gothamist Are Shutting Down
by katedye on Thursday November 02, 2017 @09:24PM
(#15616004)
They could have sold to a company that would have overhauled their monetization, but you're right that it isn't _unethical_ to shut-down (unnecessary, maybe).
Re:DNAinfo and Gothamist Are Shutting Down
by notyourday on Friday November 03, 2017 @11:28AM
(#15619891)
Opex loses is liability. Company with no opex is an asset.
Re:DNAinfo and Gothamist Are Shutting Down
by manigandham on Friday November 03, 2017 @10:20AM
(#15619372)
TD Ameritrade doesn't employ anyone? These newspaper jobs also existed until today while being unprofitable the whole time so it's likely the business would've closed even sooner with other owners.
Most pubs are 100% programmatic now, nobody is doing direct deals at small local news sites. And pubs dont need big dev teams for ads, SSPs are cheap and easy or they can use the standard header bidding wrappers. Yield management is always a moving target but not particularly complicated.
On a more serious note, this was clearly anti-union. But there is some truth to the claims about profitability. I don't know if DNAinfo was profitable or not, but I'm not surprised their margins were thin. There are huge differences in tech adoption in publishing. A site like the Washington Post with a strong tech influence (i.e. bezos money) has an incredibly advanced ad tech stack and optimize the programmatic advertising market. They probably have complex models that price their ads based on historical data and user information, and they've begun to productize their CMS. Whereas publishers that rely on direct sales with brands struggle to stay afloat and without a decent-sized dev team, profitability can be a distant dream.