The internet runs on ads.
Ad companies pay for all the “free” popular social media we use. Ad companies dictate to social media what their clients want their ads to be associated with, not associated with, and drive media of all kinds to push inflammatory and click-bait content that drives engagement and views. It’s why you indirectly can’t swear, talk about suicide, drugs, death, or violence. Sure, you technically can unless ToS prohibits it, but if companies tell their ad hosts they don’t want to be associated with someone talking about guns, the content discussing guns gets fewer ads, fewer ads = less revenue, low-revenue gets pushed to the bottom.
So lowbrow political rage bait, science denialism, and fake conspiracies drives people to interact and then gets pushed to the top because it gets ad revenue. Content that delves into critical thought and requires introspection or contemplation languishes.
Ads are destroying society because stupid and rage sells views.
Agree. Which is why I get so irrationally annoyed when sharing a good piece of journalism that’s not catering to ad-clicks and the peanut gallery here grabs their torches and pitchforks while shouting “PaYwALL!” despite me posting the gist of the article in the post body (enough to get the gist but not the full article for copyright reasons). It’s one of several reasons why I don’t even bother anymore.
Like, good journalism costs money. That money’s gotta come from somewhere if you want good journalists to be able to eat and keep doing what they do.
when you (and others) do that, it is the best thing on the news/science/sharing articles communities. lets me know whether the article is something i’m interested in reading and something i can comment intelligently on or just something i can shitpost about. i really appreciate it, just thought i’d let you know
How can I tell they’re good journalists without reading their stuff first?
By reading the gist that OP provided and deciding if you want to read more.
What if I want to read more but not enough to go find my wallet and hand over personal information?
What if you want a cookie, but not enough to go to the grocery store and buy some cookies?
Then you don’t get any fucking cookies.
The difference being that good journalism doesn’t die because I’m too lazy to get a cookie.
Well, no. It dies because you’re unwilling to fund it. Because apparently finding your wallet is too much effort.
And multiply that times a few hundred million lazy humans and now you know why real journalism is dying.
It’s not a viable business model because people are people.
It’s not a viable business model because of capitalism, not because of human nature.
You’re describing a form of the tragedy of the commons.
Attach the whole article to the post. Copy/paste has been around longer than the author. “Look at what I can read and you can’t” isn’t good for discussion. Author wants food? Let them eat cake.
So you don’t think journalists should be paid for their work?
So you think news should be a privilege for the rich?
those of us who can afford to should pay for the news. for those of us who can’t afford it, there are a lot of ways around paywalls.
Journalists are being silenced by their work being behind paywalls. I am stretching the meaning of the word “work” here on account of today’s LLMs doing the heavy lifting. I have grown skeptical of journalists consistently putting out organic prose.
Are we stealing their lunch by copying a whole article to discuss something in a niche online community? I can get past some paywalls by disabling Javascript for that site and I’ll still see ads. I’ll gladly steal the toothpick shoved through an olive off the top of their shit sandwich. Subscription paywalls are a cancer growing in the arteries of the information superhighway.