Another flailing grasp at new media as Rupert Murdoch's tabloid empire loses its grip on the future.
I am only disappointed that our government would be complicit.
Make no mistake, I am no new media fan boy. In fact I hope this has the side effect of cleaning up the misinformation that spins around Facebook et al. But it is still sad to see such an obvious manipulation of our government.
The Australian media landscape is a highly unethical duopoly that undermines democracy. And the alternative seems to be people getting their "news" from wellness gurus and radio shock jocks.
On the one hand News Corporation and Fairfax Media can rot in hell, but I'm almost as afraid of what would happen to the national discourse in the resulting power vacuum.
> On the one hand News Corporation and Fairfax Media can rot in hell, but I'm almost as afraid of what would happen to the national discourse in the resulting power vacuum.
Someone's gonna fill in, and most probably it will be Russian or Chinese propaganda.
The problem is that there is no standard form of microtransaction on the internet. I'd happily pay 2 cents to read an article, which is a lot more than the website would receive in advertising revenue, but not $10/month in subscription fees.
We basically need an aggregator of all of those 2 cents, since individually the payment fees will be extreme.
> I am only disappointed that our government would be complicit.
I think I'm OK with the government going along, provided media companies have the choice on if they require payment for this sort of reuse of their content. Assuming it is optional, it will be interesting to see which companies charge. It will also be interesting to see if Google and/or Facebook think it is worth paying.
Personally, I go directly to the news sources I'd be willing to pay for and avoid all the crap. And search engines for research, to find older articles. I could see a business case for papers and similar to opt out of the news aggregators, but it would seem to be suicide to opt out of search as for all intents and purposes your domain would cease to exist.
Don't you think "we are the champions" is way overplayed? I suggest "Don't stop me now" if you want to stick Queen. Or maybe "I'm Still Standing" by Elton John if you want something a more gloating in this context.
It doesn't look like a flailing grasp to me. It looks to me like the press has way too much power and influence and uses it to get policy bad for the public but good for the press.
This idea that the press is dying just because its revenue is drying up isn't rooted in reality. The press has enough influence to just make the public give it money, bypassing the whole "sell stuff" part of the model. For example, Canada just gave the press, as an industry, $595 million of the public's money for some reason.
No, the press is more powerful than ever. And why? Because if you have something nice and the press hates you, you're very likely to lose that nice thing.
I am only disappointed that our government would be complicit.
Make no mistake, I am no new media fan boy. In fact I hope this has the side effect of cleaning up the misinformation that spins around Facebook et al. But it is still sad to see such an obvious manipulation of our government.