We Finally Have Proof That the Internet Is Worse::High-profile lawsuits against Google and Amazon have revealed Silicon Valley’s vise grip on our lives.
Getting hit by a paywall to read this article, maybe made the point better than the article!
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Do you usually complain when anything else in life is not completely free?
Either it’s paywalls or horrible ads+tracking. I don’t know why people expect to get everything for free, just because it’s on the internet. Especially something that takes time and effort to make.
PSA: you don’t get to complain about “the media” if you’re not even willing to pay for quality outlets
Yes, I complain about both.
Next stupid question.
Someone complains about one specific thing not being free. You:
I don’t know why people expect to get **everything **for free
Since you’ve started down the road of what people are and are not allowed to do: you are not allowed to participate in discussions if you can’t avoid making shitty logical fallacies in your very first response.
The biggest problem with paying for journalism is that nobody wants to be subscribing to 50 different websites.
If it were easier to pay for multiple news sites at once, I’m sure more people would do it.
That’s my gripe as well. I currently subscribe to 3 or 4 online news outlets, and that’s probably because I work in news. I can’t do more.
Still, there are services like Apple News+ and Pressreader. I wish they would do more, but I guess it’s better than nothing
While it’s understandable that in the current economic systems news outlets have to make money somehow and one way is through paywalls, I think it’s also fair for people to value free access to information. Assuming that news outlets and journalists can still make a living, most people would probably agree that it’s better for everybody if the content can be accessed freely, especially since copying it and transmitting it on the internet is super cheap (particularly for text articles). This isn’t some absurd concept. Libraries are respected and valued institutions precisely because they serve a similar role, and we have the tools to do it on an even larger scale. Of course it might not be practical with how things are structured economically right now (and heck, maybe there isn’t even a better way to do it) but I think it’s fair to recognize that there’s a lot of untapped potential for sharing information, and it’d be nice if we could find a way to do it more equitably :).
The issue isn’t data transmission and hosting, it’s paying someone a living wage to do this work professionally, along with their editors, graphic artists, analysts, and everyone else along the way that writes the news. It’s a bit absurd that people complain about ads and low quality reporting/analysis while simultaneously demanding all journalists work for free. Hell, if you get a library card you’ll probably be able to legitimately access the article right now for free in a way that still pays the journalist.
Are there ads behind the paywalls? Genuine question, we I’ve never paid to find out. If yes, then they can ask fuck right off. You don’t get to have it both ways.
It’s annoying seeing ads in paid products, but having multiple revenue streams is a basic financial strategy that every business employs, so no surprises here
Not surprising, no, but it also ensures that I will never directly financially support that product.
I mean, yes, but they’re minimal. They don’t charge enough for a subscription to fully cover their revenues. Plus serving ads has always been something news outlets have done for revenue.
But hey, if they can just fuck off, I guess we can maintain either ads all over the page or let Sinclair/Newscorp run everything.
Yes, this is what I’m saying. Distribution is essentially free now (not entirely, but it’s absurdly cheap). As long as you can fund the work it’s only a win if more people can have access to it. Of course this falls apart if people can’t make a living doing good journalism. Does this mean paywalls / ads are the only / best solutions? Maybe! But I think it’s fair to dream of other systems which could allow this to function and allow for broader access. Maybe we use libraries as a crutch, maybe some form of universal basic income could allow people to do this work and provide it for free, maybe there could be grants, or donations, or whatever. Of course people need to be able to make a living off of this work, and there’s obviously going to be issues with every way we could approach this… but that doesn’t mean it’s not a shame when people who want to read it can’t access it (or can’t access it at a price they’re willing to pay).
The thing is that economies of scale do not really work with (good) journalism. You’ll never get a ton of clicks on an in-depth, nuanced and well-researched story, because it’s not really “sexy”. That’s why even serious publications need to put out clickbait content, as it essentially funds the actual serious journalistic work. The problem here is that clickbait articles cause a reputational damage to publications.
A paywall makes it possible to avoid all of this, but then you run into the problem that fewer people have access to your content, rendering what you do less impactful.
As a journalist, let me tell you something: the reality is that news is an awful business. It’s hugely useful for public discourse, but it does not make any money. It’s essentially a public service, like roads or public transportation or schools: they are essential parts of society and they don’t work as a business.
Some countries realized that, and they have public-funded or state-funded media, like the BBC (on NPR, in a different way). While this poses huge problems with regards to conflicts of interest and freedom of the press, that’s the only economic model that actually works.
Agreed. I’m friends with a few journalists and even the ones who had a steady job at major outlets were working it like a hustle. There really isn’t a good way to do it that doesn’t involve some level of either corporate or wide-public investment and both of those have an easy chance to get corrupted.
Yep. All major US digital news outlets (with the notable exception of the NYT) are either owned by rich people (WaPo, The Atlantic), publicly funded or in perpetual crisis (Buzzfeed News has closed, Vice has closed, etc).
Yeah, I think publicly funded news is an important model to consider because in many ways it seems like the only good way to do it… but obviously people have concerns about conflicts of interest, which is fair, but you’re going to have them no matter what, so maybe we need a mix of differently funded news sources… or maybe we just need other systems in place that decrease the conflict of interest and make it unlikely for the public funding to be manipulated in order to control the news or whatever. This is one reason that some system of universal basic income seems like an appealing solution to me. If everybody is just guaranteed a livable wage, then it’s not really a source of income that could be altered just to manipulate journalists (ideally anyway). Though, obviously there’s potentially problems with that too, and journalists may have additional expenses which would not be covered, so it could limit what they can actually do.
Publicly funded media is also under constant attack by populist parties (NPR, the BBC, the Italian broadcasting company, the Swiss one, etc). They are being accused of being leftist, irrelevant, too big, or too expensive. Which are all excuses to destroy them and to be able to free up the market for huge private conglomerates that have an agenda
Are you always an arrogant anus or are you just having a bad day?
Just having a bad day, lol. I did come off a bit too strong, I admit it. Truth is, I am a journalist and it pisses me off that people constantly expect me to work for free.
Hey, it happens to the best of us! Fwiw I don’t think anyone worth listening to would expect you to work for free. Journalism is vital and the people actually producing articles should be paid way more. I’m in the medical field and if journalism operates anything like us I’m sure there’s plenty of cash coming in but it’s all concentrated at the top. The people doing the work get stiffed and you’re held hostage by your desire to positively contribute to society. It sucks. And that’s why I’m an anarchist now lol
Hey, thank you for you empathy. Journalism kinda works like that, except there is not really a lot of money coming in, lol. But money being concentrated at the top is definitely a constant in our field, too.
Working as a journalist has radicalized me too, lol. I do think that journalism, health, public transportation and other public utilities should just be non-for-profit sectors. They do not make sense as businesses and they are just too important to society to leave them to the free market
Anytime! It’s rough out there and public servants of all strokes feel a lot of the heat*, unfortunately. It’s insane how much of the public sector has been privatized. I know journalism is kind of in a grey area as far as that’s concerned but we’ve been ignoring that for far too long. I’d go so far as to say all vital infrastructure or services should be a part of the Commons, left for communities to manage for their residents, with significant legal protections against privatization, nepotism, and profit. These are all things we need to live and be active in our community/state/country and should be treated like the resources they are instead of commodities to be bought and sold
You don’t seem to understand what the Internet is. Sorry for your lack of vision.
Is it a lack of vision to know that everything has a cost, even on the internet? Do people genuinely think that basic economics don’t apply to digital products?
What it costs for me to connect my phone to my best friend’s server to stream movies is that we both pay our ISP and for electricity. He wants to share and I wanna join. The streets are paid for. Where the fuck does a publisher need to come in?
Websites shouldn’t exist to be in between and charge for it. If you put something out there online and you charge for it, it’s because you think that you being paid at scale matters more than how far your message could reach without the weight is transactions being involved. You cause cost. Value is only value when it’s unburdened.
Money makes it all worse. How does anyone enjoy a videogame full of dollar signs and time limits? How does it matter that we have thousands of things created when you expect the information to bear a cost higher than just the transmission needs?
You want a world of meritocracy where people are propped up for their exclusive access. I want a world where everyone has everything at their disposal so they can shine on their own.
You’re either a bot or a very confused person, because half your sentences do not even make sense. You connecting with your friend over the internet does not have anything to do with people working and putting the result of their work on the internet, like journalists do.
You say that “money makes it all worse” and in an ideal world I could agree with you. But I don’t know if you’ve noticed that in THIS world people need money to live. The internet makes it possible to publish and exchange information at a near-zero cost, but the cost of creating that information remain, be it art, music, photography, videogames, programming, or journalism. That’s where publishers need to come in.
P.s: I think you don’t know what the word “meritocracy” means
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Download ublock origin…go to custom filters… paste in filter list…no more paywalls, you don’t pay anything, hooray.
Penis
Wow, I think this is the most down-voted thing I’ve agreed with. Should we get a selfie together?
Yes please :,(
it’s so sad. this is going to sound pathetic, but – i remember in high school browsing reddit and twitter and 4chan and almost getting a buzz off of it, the interactions felt so cutting-edge, funny and fresh and perfectly transient, it felt like i had a voice for the first time, able to post and have people like what i posted.
and now we’re kinda just…going thru the motions and everything is worse and companies are just blindly nuking things we used to hold sacred
I know there is truth in that the internet I worse.
But I do wonder how much of our feeling that is worse is more based on the glamor of youth and nostalgia.
I think there’s some of this, but I do honestly believe the internet has fundamentally changed and the makeup of it is a lot different. This isn’t all bad, but there’s a lot of things that we’ve lost now that the internet has become more centralized and corporate in general. At least proportionally I think there’s far fewer passion project websites and a lot of people gather on big websites instead, and there’s fewer communities that are strictly about a niche topic. In some sense this is good because things are generally more accessible to the average person, but I feel like the niche weirdos have been drowned out a bit in the eternal September, and there’s something a little sad about that too!
Thanks. You did nail why I think it’s different and even worse. I wonder what like… cluster of 10 years would you say was your peak internet experience?
I think there are certain aspects of the modern internet that make it a worse place, even for all of the massive benefit and improvement from the early days. I’m mostly going to stick with social media, because initially it was a really interesting thing that quickly turned toxic and tbh I think when historians look back at this period, they’ll probably be able to point to a significant amount of societal damaged caused by it.
Like in the early days of myspace and even Facebook, it was a legit helpful way to connect with friends and catch up with people. Where I think it goes off of the rails is when you get to algorithmic timelines. Facebook in particular I think is very nearly directly responsible for a lot of the political divide we see today because of this. If you poll just about any issue, you’ll find that the US is trends about 70% left/progressive. Most people want universal healthcare, reasonable gun legislation, etc. But on Facebook, which probably has more of a representative sample of Americans than anyone else, you would frequently find that 7-10 out of the top posts were conservative wack jobs. One of the things that drove me to stop using the site entirely around 15-16 was that my friend group of mostly lefties somehow led to half or more of my TL being the small fraction of family or work acquaintances with right wing fringe nonsense takes.
You can kind of see this happening with reddit in real time right now. In 2010, you stared with the subs you wanted to see, things were democratically upvoted, and there was no algo outside of the users to speak of. Reddit has slowly been moving away from that, often surfacing things that you have no interest in because “engagement.” I have a pretty strong suspicion this was one of the driving factors in killing third party clients - they still mostly presented content the old way without shoving a bunch of crap in your face. Twitter went through the same. People used to complain about twitter being a cesspool, and I never had that because I always used a third party client and just followed people who’s stuff I wanted to see. And if they ventured too far into the sort of lunatic fringe, pruning them was easy and I could continue seeing the type of content I wanted. Now with no third party clients, there is just no way to not see this kind of nonsense on twitter, hence I haven’t for many months now.
Now, this is just not the way most people are going to engage with things on the internet. Like, just look at most people’s phones for fuck’s sake. A zillion notifications and badges for things that no one should care about. It doesn’t occur to most people that you can even avoid this kind of thing.
Anyway, lots of cool things about the modern internet, the type of social media most are using ain’t it though.
Part of that might be you though. Things that gave us thrills in our youth become bland when you get older. I could say the same thing about ICQ and AIM vs reddit, twitter, etc.
Imagine needing proof of something so basic that you could see it just being being online over the past decade, if not decade and a half.
Not everyone is old enough to know the difference. Imagine being 20. What frame of reference do you have?
This is true. Processing things at that age isn’t as cogent as an adult. There is a lot of noise that has to be worked out in your 20s from everything you learned as a child.
Sometimes people think they know the obvious answer and they turn out to be wrong. It’s good to have clear evidence of what is going on.
In recent years, it’s been harder to love the internet, a miracle of connectivity that feels ever more bloated, stagnant, commercialized, and junkified. We are just now starting to understand the specifics of this transformation—the true influence of Silicon Valley’s vise grip on our lives. It turns out that the slow rot we might feel isn’t just in our heads, after all.
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The Internet is getting more decentralized, with better alternatives for big corporate services
Archive.today link for those hit by the paywall: https://archive.ph/G2Dc7
Its much more than “the internet is worse”. Everything technology is worse, can’t have nice things.
I have a microwave/air fryer/convection combo that I can’t use unless I install a phone app. It came with the apartment. It has only a few “buttons” on its face. The UI is almost completely non-intuitive, but the app makes it easy. Every time I bake bread I fight the urge to blow my brains out as I navigate to the app. I have become that which I mocked.
I yearn for the days when my toaster just made toast.
There’s a line that needs to be drawn between things that benefit from IoT and things that should’ve remained dumb
Use an old phone with no user accounts in it.
God, what garbage.
It turns outcapitalism is great for maximising profits, but terrible for consumers, and demanding open-source products is the only way out of this hell-hole
Here’s the proof: vaguely motions in the general direction of everything
This is the Internet. We don’t need proof.
…but also paywalls it
I mean I’m on board with the generality, but looking up the original article it looks like was was taken down, stating:
EDITOR’S NOTE 10/6/2023: After careful review of the op-ed, “How Google Alters Search Queries to Get at Your Wallet,” and relevant material provided to us following its publication, WIRED editorial leadership has determined that the story does not meet our editorial standards. It has been removed.
Apologies for the disgusting timestamp. I’m quoting.
It could be I’m missing something though since I can’t see the whole article. It sounded like the Wired article was the basis for this one by The Atlantic.
> have proof that internet is worse
> requires subscription to readThere you have it, boys!
Just don’t use amazon or google.
