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Author | Topic: What Is Australia's Problem With News in Google and Facebook | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
quote: The issue is not your agreement with the point. The issue is that point IS the point in the sentence you chose to quote.
quote: We are back to the question of context. Indeed it comes back to your statement:
Many news sites plead with visitors to subscribe
That is what I was talking about, Please don’t assume that I’m talking about every newspaper because it just doesn’t make sense. They are too many and too varied for one-size-fits-all.
quote: It’s not a just answer but it seems to be a popular one. And it is the motivation behind the Australian legal proposals.
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hooah212002 Member (Idle past 802 days) Posts: 3193 Joined: |
Note that I am not taking sides in this matter.
Percy writes: I still don't understand how Google providing a link to a news article does anything to the news company but provide a benefit. Google benefits, too. Seems like a win-win situation. I don't understand why Google caved. You're an outlier in that you actually read the articles from which a headline is derived. 99% of people, especially Facebook users, only read the headlines and they never EVER bother reading the actual substance about a topic that they then proceed to rail on about. FB (and most all other social media) users share links all over the place without having ever learned what that link is actually talking about. So in essence, their content is being shared but their sites never visited. Entire discussions are had about a topic that some journalist took the time to create and write about but a good chunk of people discuss and share this article without knowing who wrote it or worse, realizing that it wasn't written by a journalist but rather by some bot somewhere just to elicit their outrage....but that's a whole other can of worms for another day.
Percy writes: Google Ads is based upon this principle. Webmasters create places on their sites where Google can run ads that companies pay them to run, and when someone clicks on one of those ads then the website running it gains revenue. Making links available to click on is a benefit to the websites linked to, and companies are willing to pay for other websites to host links (in the form of ads) to their own websites. Adblockers man, adblockers. I certainly hope you are smart enough to not click ads on the internet should you not be tech savvy enough to not see them. Edited by hooah212002, : No reason given.
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hooah212002 Member (Idle past 802 days) Posts: 3193 Joined:
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The other problem with a purely subscription based model is that it seems like it would push people even further into their own echo chambers. If people have to pay for access to news in that manner, then it is that much less likely that a person is willing to seek out opposing views. No fucking way will I willingly pay Fox news or Breitbart, or god forbid OANN or Newsmax, just to get a different perspective. At the same time, I don't want to only get my news from a limited number of sources that I personally am convinced is "unbiased" because that doesn't exist.
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Percy Member Posts: 22392 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.3 |
PaulK writes: quote:The issue is not your agreement with the point. The issue is that point IS the point in the sentence you chose to quote. You're making a couple absurd claims. One is that if your overall point was about, in this case, finances, then every single other thing you said must also have been about finances. The other claim seems to be that people are not permitted to agree with your overall point while disagreeing with one or more details, that one can only agree with the whole of it or none of it. These are both ludicrous, but that seems the corner you're trying to box me into. I responded only to the part where you claimed that "The newspapers generally don’t want to rely on visitors arriving via links" because I had a different view on this side issue and thought it deserved comment. --Percy
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
quote: Presumably you mean every other thing in the short paragraph you extracted the quoted sentence from. But that isn’t absurd. If you mean anything much more, however, it is your claim that is absurd.
quote: I have no idea how you come up with that bizarre nonsense. My point is that you falsely attributed a claim to me, based on a sentence you took out of context. I don’t think there is anything unreasonable in objecting to that. Especially when you ignore multiple corrections.
quote: Except that you commented on a claim that I had not made. As I have repeatedly pointed out.
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Percy Member Posts: 22392 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.3 |
hooah212002 writes: Adblockers man, adblockers. I certainly hope you are smart enough to not click ads on the internet should you not be tech savvy enough to not see them. I don't mind the ads on news outlet websites because I want them to survive, but only if the ads are non-intrusive. I use a privacy tool called PrivacyBadger, and it only blocks ads that attempt to funnel information about you back to the website. At some sites (like WaPo) all the ads get blocked. Some sites falsely detect PrivacyBadger as an ad blocker and won't display unless you disable it, so if I decide the article is worth it then I disable it for that site. I do occasionally click on ads. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22392 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.3 |
I still don't see why you think I misinterpreted that sentence from your Message 13, but let me try again, this time by briefly commenting on everything in the message.
But I will note that the preference for subscriptions argues against links being a major benefit to newspapers. I disagree. Subscription sites like WaPo and NYT provide full access to search engines because links to their websites are a significant benefit to them.
To maintain the value of subscriptions necessarily means limiting the amount of free content which will result in some links being blocked for some people. Agreed about limiting free content.
The newspapers generally don’t want to rely on visitors arriving via links. I disagree. It doesn't matter how visitors arrive at a news site if it results in eyeballs on ads. --Percy
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
quote: Well, it’s because you went off on a completely irrelevant track.
quote: Neither the Washington Post nor the New York Times provide unfettered access to articles. At least not to Europeans. You have to sign up to see any stories. I haven’t read a WaPo or NYT story in months because of that.
quote: The newspapers don’t seem to share your opinion.
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Percy Member Posts: 22392 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.3 |
By yesterday Facebook and Google had each agreed to pay the Australian news industry $0.5 billion/year for the next three years (https://www.cnbc.com/...n-in-news-over-next-three-years.html).
Google's net income for 2020 was $40.27 billion, Facebook's was $29.15 billion. Australia is just one country of 25 million, so the combined Google/Facebook deal represents $40 per capita annually. The world population is 7.7 billion, so if all countries of the world reached similar deals with Google and Facebook it would total $308 billion or 4.4 times more than last year's total profits. The placation approach taken by Google and Facebook is obviously unsustainable. As more countries demand similar deals the two companies will recognize that they've allowed a Pandora's box to be opened and will then begin fighting back against new deals and reneging on current deals. The whole affair is based upon a fundamental misunderstanding of how the Internet works. The value of links flows from the linker to the linkee, not the other way around as the Australian law asserts. "The events in Australia show the danger of camouflaging a bid for cash subsidies behind distortions about how the internet works," said Facebook's vice president of global affairs Nick Clegg (Australia passes new law requiring Facebook and Google to pay for news - CNN). --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22392 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.3 |
hooah212002 writes: The other problem with a purely subscription based model is that it seems like it would push people even further into their own echo chambers. If people have to pay for access to news in that manner, then it is that much less likely that a person is willing to seek out opposing views. No fucking way will I willingly pay Fox news or Breitbart, or god forbid OANN or Newsmax, just to get a different perspective. At the same time, I don't want to only get my news from a limited number of sources that I personally am convinced is "unbiased" because that doesn't exist. Great point. Every so often I'll watch the news show on Fox News, which is broadcast in mid-afternoon, and it seems fine. The problem with the other shows on Fox News, like Fox and Friends, Hannity, Carlson, etc., is that most people who watch them don't realize they're, at best, entertainment masquerading as news, not actual news. At worst they represent alienating propaganda that foments violence and insurrection. I agree that the Internet is very effective at sorting people into their respective echo chambers. It is dividing us and seems too dangerous to let continue, but it also seems impossible to stop in a country that highly values personal freedom. Much of what is said on the Fox News programs is dangerous speech because the ultimate result is what we saw on January 6, but who gets to decide what is dangerous speech and what isn't? In Wikipedia's United States free speech exceptions - Wikipedia it says:
quote: Some items in this list seem questionable, like obscenity. There was a time when a conclusion of obscenity meant something ("Banned in Boston"), but no more. Concerning fraud, no one seems to object much to the fraud perpetrated upon the American people that the election was rigged. I'm not sure what "true threats" are. And I don't know why advertising is on the list because advertising claims almost never encounter First Amendment challenges. The question of the moment involves whether people should be allowed to say things that lead others to break the law, such as the Trump tweets, rallies and speeches that led to the January 6th insurrection. Up until the insurrection actually happened I think most people would have agreed that Trump's speech was protected, but after it did cause an actual insurrection it was clear that it wasn't. But it seems like we should be able to deem sufficiently inciteful speech unprotected by the First Amendment without having to have an actual insurrection before deeming it unprotected. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22392 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.3 |
PaulK writes: quote:Well, it’s because you went off on a completely irrelevant track. It's more that you seem to get some special pleasure out of incessantly pursuing imagined grievance.
quote: Neither the Washington Post nor the New York Times provide unfettered access to articles. At least not to Europeans. You have to sign up to see any stories. You apparently didn't read, or maybe didn't understand, what I wrote. I said that subscription sites like WaPo and NYT provide full access to search engines, not to the Internet generally. Again, they're subscription sites, which by definition of course don't provide access to the Internet generally. The search engine access allows Google and Bing and so forth to include links to WaPo and NYT articles in their search results, but Internet users won't be able to read those articles unless they have a subscription.
I haven’t read a WaPo or NYT story in months because of that. WaPo and NYT and WSJ and so forth are all fully indexed by search engines, and you will see links to their articles in search engine results, but if you do not subscribe to them then naturally you will only be able to read articles they make available for free. WaPo used to allow ten free articles per month but I think it's down to two now. They allow full free access to their coronavirus page. I don't know about NYT. WSJ allows no free articles.
quote: The newspapers don’t seem to share your opinion. There are two things that cause people to take on irrational and unsupportable positions: money and power. In this case it's both. The Australian news media has harnessed Australian political power to raid other businesses to bail them out of their financial difficulties. --Percy
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
quote: And yet you are the one who insisted on dragging it on and on.
quote: Presumably you mean that they provide sufficient access for the search engines’ web crawlers to find and index the news stories. Which may well fall short of full access. And, of course, the fact that the links provided by the search engines are useless to non-subscribers is a significant limit on access. And one that is especially relevant since it applies to Facebook who are not a search engine, but are a major part of the issue. However the fact that the links found are useless to people who don’t subscribe reinforces my point. Indeed, it shows that they have a way around the problem of poor search on their sites - one of your objections. On the points where we disagree that access supports my views rather than yours.
quote: Without signing up I get none, not two.
quote: But the position is not clearly irrational or unsupportable. The newspapers do make far less advertising money than Facebook or Google and it has hurt their income. Eyeballs on ads don’t seem to be enough.
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Percy Member Posts: 22392 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.3 |
PaulK writes: quote:And yet you are the one who insisted on dragging it on and on. Well I'm just so glad you never replied to my insistent attempts to drag it out.
quote: Presumably you mean that they provide sufficient access for the search engines’ web crawlers to find and index the news stories. Yes, of course.
Which may well fall short of full access. Again, of course, there's a good reason there's such a thing as robots.txt. For example, WaPo doesn't make reader comments available to search engines.
And, of course, the fact that the links provided by the search engines are useless to non-subscribers is a significant limit on access. Yes, of course. For example, I have WSJ and several other paywall sites on my hidden list for Google. But it's worth mentioning that headlines often include a significant amount of information. For example, the headline Trump's tax returns and related records turned over to Manhattan district attorney - CNNPolitics tells me all I need to know for now and I don't need to click on the link.
And one that is especially relevant since it applies to Facebook who are not a search engine, but are a major part of the issue. Yes, as I described earlier, Facebook's news pages are actually constructed by the news media itself. It's one of the big irony aspects of this, that an Australian news outlet can construct and maintain a Facebook page and then demand compensation from Facebook. It's as if you demanded payment from EvC after posting here.
However the fact that the links found are useless to people who don’t subscribe reinforces my point. I'm not sure which of your points you mean are reinforced by links to paywall sites.
Indeed, it shows that they have a way around the problem of poor search on their sites - one of your objections. Actually, that was in response to your claim that news outlets would prefer to be destination sites rather than rely on outside links, and my only point in this case was that sites with poor search facilities need to improve them if they truly want to become destination sites.
On the points where we disagree that access supports my views rather than yours. Not really.
quote: Without signing up I get none, not two. I'm getting none now, too. Last time I checked was a few months ago.
quote: But the position is not clearly irrational or unsupportable. It most certainly is. It asserts that the value of links is exactly backwards from reality.
The newspapers do make far less advertising money than Facebook or Google and it has hurt their income. Eyeballs on ads don’t seem to be enough. But that's not Google or Facebook's fault, and there's no justification or logic behind the notion that those who make less in advertising have a claim on the incomes of those who make more. --Percy
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
quote: The point that newspapers prefer subscriptions to just letting people arrive via links ? Remember that they are reducing the number of eyeballs on ads by going subscription-only.
quote: That wasn’t my point. So thanks for demonstrating that you are the one who keeps dragging it up unnecessarily again, and again.
quote: Which was completely irrelevant to my actual point - and as we see letting the search engines index the sites helps, too. Not to mention the point I already made that poor search doesn’t stop me from regularly reading the BBC News site - more frequently than I use search engines to find news.
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Percy Member Posts: 22392 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.3 |
PaulK writes: quote:The point that newspapers prefer subscriptions to just letting people arrive via links ? Remember that they are reducing the number of eyeballs on ads by going subscription-only. I mostly disagree. The effect of paywalls on traffic will vary widely across the various news outlets. Just poking around a little about the Boston Globe I see that total circulation (print+digital) has increased since 2016. Paid print circulation peaked in 2016 at 136,000, but paid digital circulation recently surpassed 200,000. I don't think you can make a blanket statement that paywalls reduce web traffic. My guess of what will happen as more sites raise paywalls is that traffic will flow to islands of the highest quality while starving the lesser outlets who will have to eventually modify or abandon their paywall model. I got the sense that you might think that news outlets invariably prefer the subscription model to ads, and if so then I disagree. I think many news outlets are in search of the right mix of approaches that works best for them. While the subscription model (combined with ads) is obviously working for WaPo, NYT and WSJ, I think many local papers are finding paywalls to be a circulation killer and are emphasizing a local ad approach. Other outlets are trying a voluntary or gift approach, like The Guardian. So I can't agree that news outlets in general prefer subscription models (thereby turning themselves into destination sites) to links from search engines, social media and other sources.
quote: That wasn’t my point. So thanks for demonstrating that you are the one who keeps dragging it up unnecessarily again, and again. Whether or not it was "your point," it was still something you said that I disagreed with. If you think you were misinterpreted then maybe you were - people are misinterpreted billions of times a day with absolutely no nefarious intent or involvement of stupidity.
quote: Which was completely irrelevant to my actual point... Even if it was "completely irrelevant to your actual point" (and I don't believe it was), why does that matter? Discussions always tend to range around, and it was completely relevant to the point I was making when I opened this thread.
- and as we see letting the search engines index the sites helps, too. If you mean that it is a benefit to paywall websites for search engines to index them, I said this myself and so of course I agree.
Not to mention the point I already made that poor search doesn’t stop me from regularly reading the BBC News site - more frequently than I use search engines to find news. Poor search wasn't offered as the central deficiency of paywall news sites but as an example of how they're not putting enough effort into becoming destination sites (i.e., self-contained, not reliant on outside websites). If WaPo were truly dedicated to becoming a destination site then I wouldn't have to occasionally use Google to find a WaPo news article, and I'd be able to control how often their page updates and repositions to the top, and I'd be able to easily obtain a URL for an article when I'm reading it in their app, and they'd provide the ability to organize by date so I could read articles published today, then click on a link and read articles published yesterday, instead of being confronted by a hash of articles from the past few days, and every link would be drag-and-drop instead of just most links, and they'd fix the problem with viewing and posting comments in their app, and you'd be able to move back and forth easily between browser version and app version, and just on and on. It isn't just search. That was just an example. Let me use EvC as an example. I know the website has some deficiencies and room for improvements. If it wasn't just me I'd make sure it was all quickly resolved while planning for future improvements and enhancements, but I'm only one person and can only do so much. But WaPo (and NYT and WSJ and so forth) are multi-million dollar corporations with a huge stake in building websites and apps that attract rather than frustrate, yet they're not doing that. I question their commitment to and competence at becoming destination sites. --Percy Edited by Percy, : Grammar.
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