Re:We read the paper that forced Timnit Gebru out of Google
by bartread on Saturday December 05, 2020 @05:41AM
(#25313461)
> the interesting bit is that publication such as Nikkei or the FT are still top-notch, but these are niches, not general audience publications. (also my FT subscription is £30/month and that’s a lot of money if you’re not in that niche)
Indeed. £30/mo sounds like quite a lot of money in an era where a teenager doesn't come to your house every morning and shove the newspaper through your door (as I used to many years ago) but, adjusted for inflation, it's probably less than the cost of that older delivery mechanism.
It's hard to persuade people of that point of view though so they stick with free, ad-supported "news". Not that paid news wasn't historically ad supported as well, but at least they had more diversified revenue streams.
And you are, of course, correct: it's all about the clicks and ad revenue. And, given most peoples' preference for free over paid news, I don't have any great ideas on how to fix that.
clicks. after a decade during which they lost money over fist not knowing how to monetise their product on the internet, they all went to the lowest common denominator: clicks. this in turn forced them to start bending the truth (something that tabloids where known for, and for which they got huge profits).
basically we still don’t have a viable business model for this industry. the only one that works needs headlines such as the one you mentioned to function.
the interesting bit is that publication such as Nikkei or the FT are still top-notch, but these are niches, not general audience publications. (also my FT subscription is £30/month and that’s a lot of money if you’re not in that niche)