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A comment on Google is giving $1B to publishers to help convince governments not to take more. Parent comment

Re:Google is giving $1B to publishers to help convince gover... by bananaface on Friday October 02, 2020 @08:31AM (#24661920)
Without a feudal lord, peasants wouldn't have land to farm. News organisations aren't peasants but the issue is that the Lord is able to control & skim the majority of value from the resource (in this case, attention).
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Re:Google is giving $1B to publishers to help convince gover... by dantheman on Friday October 02, 2020 @10:14AM (#24662804)
They can choose the block google anytime they want; comparing them to lords and serfs is not a good comparison.
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Re:Google is giving $1B to publishers to help convince gover... by bananaface on Saturday October 03, 2020 @04:37AM (#24670540)
Right, and a serf can technically leave. But they can't, because they lose access to the pertinent resource. Where else can they farm?

I don't like the media, I'm not trying to make out they're weak. My issue is that Google monopolising attention and then unilaterally taking news website's work for free is BS. They're skimming the vast majority of value from the industry with no kickbacks. They get away with it because no inidividual news organisation can fight. The only option is collective action (won't work, too much reward for defecting) or legislation.

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