Still can't believe Bezos bought the Washington Post for 0.005 twitters (less than one of his boats)

A big underlying reason why journalists are so mad at everything, and at tech especially, is that the economics of news are terrible

Daimo Pay. Build once, distribute everywhere

Pre-internet, most of college-educated America subscribed to a newspaper. If you didn't, you'd be last to know important things.

Trouble is, information is a non-excludable good. Post internet, no matter who gets the scoop, we all see it ~immediately. The rails are efficient.

Subscribing is strictly optional now:

What happens? Darwinism. Most outlets that make it adapt to an ad-based model, changing from a recurring revenue business (sticky, trust based) to an entertainment business (bursty, hit based; a single viral story pays more clicks than a year of good-but-boring local journalism).

Another is the new reliance on the Current Thing. Something you can keep milking for clicks for months. Far more valuable than a one-off story!

Trump was the ultimate repeat-star Current Thing. First his campaign, russiagate, muller report, second campaign, etc. Saved a bunch of news outlets from bankruptcy.

Not optimistic about trad news until they find a new funding model.

All current ones seem bad.

- Subscribers. ⬇️
- Ads. See above.
- Donors. For local papers, this means local honchos... which the paper will then have a hard time criticizing objectively.
- Get bought by an individual. I guess it depends who...

One side effect is Bad Vibes in journalism land. Trust fund NYU kids doing unpaid internships; postgrads writing for $35k/year, cancelling each other. Crabs in a bucket.

Agreed. Short-term fix but long-term pain. I’ve tried to do the opposite with my local news site and it seems to be working. Still a long way to go before it’s sustainable though.