Most people are exposed to a lot less meaningful news. 30 years ago the national networks had well produced national news and even local news ran well researched syndicated pieces. Print and TV news was decimated by the inability to get a decent slice of the sweet sweet online ad revenue pie. More media options also meant that you weren’t stuck with what the major tv networks were playing.
The most patriotic thing someone could do in this decade is to figure out how to run a great journalism operation with costs and revenue that don’t compromise the integrity of the operation yet yield a nice profit. My bet would be on a company doing something similar to what Apple had been experimenting with on Apple news+. Maintain a strong subscription revenue stream and ensure higher value targeted ads that don’t betray your privacy.
Technology definitely makes it much easier to get constituent parts of journalism at a lower cost. Anyone can get tons of cspan content or live streams of major events without expending massive amounts of cash to physically be present. What we’re not getting is the deeper cuts of journalists asking great questions. The White House press briefings just make me want to smash in the screen because of the completely repetitive and useless questions only there to trigger the person on the podium to make a sound byte. Compilation of stories can now be done mostly remotely from lower cost areas. Getting paid by advertisers without being held hostage and from subscribers is the next trick.
Advertising is an incredibly shitty and inefficient way of funding. Not only that, it breaks the model that someone wanting a service is the one to pay for it, distorting the incentive model (see current_date). Hopefully we can get to fully subscriber funded in time.
Apple’s direction for ad targeting is device-side that isn’t tied to a particular site and doesn’t track you in servers they own. That lack of a tracking mechanism makes it hard to extort/cancel content providers through ad revenue streams because the advertisers have less control.
Most people are exposed to a lot less meaningful news. 30 years ago the national networks had well produced national news and even local news ran well researched syndicated pieces. Print and TV news was decimated by the inability to get a decent slice of the sweet sweet online ad revenue pie. More media options also meant that you weren’t stuck with what the major tv networks were playing.
The most patriotic thing someone could do in this decade is to figure out how to run a great journalism operation with costs and revenue that don’t compromise the integrity of the operation yet yield a nice profit. My bet would be on a company doing something similar to what Apple had been experimenting with on Apple news+. Maintain a strong subscription revenue stream and ensure higher value targeted ads that don’t betray your privacy.
Tim Pool has hinted he wants to head in that direction. Sargon too. How attainable that is, I don't know but worth keeping an eye on.
Technology definitely makes it much easier to get constituent parts of journalism at a lower cost. Anyone can get tons of cspan content or live streams of major events without expending massive amounts of cash to physically be present. What we’re not getting is the deeper cuts of journalists asking great questions. The White House press briefings just make me want to smash in the screen because of the completely repetitive and useless questions only there to trigger the person on the podium to make a sound byte. Compilation of stories can now be done mostly remotely from lower cost areas. Getting paid by advertisers without being held hostage and from subscribers is the next trick.
Advertising is an incredibly shitty and inefficient way of funding. Not only that, it breaks the model that someone wanting a service is the one to pay for it, distorting the incentive model (see current_date). Hopefully we can get to fully subscriber funded in time.
Apple’s direction for ad targeting is device-side that isn’t tied to a particular site and doesn’t track you in servers they own. That lack of a tracking mechanism makes it hard to extort/cancel content providers through ad revenue streams because the advertisers have less control.