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                                             September 21, 2018


                                                 Originally posted
                                                 to crookedtimber.

Jeff Martin wrote:

    "In a way, online advertising has become a small and indirect
    argument for socialism, inasmuch as it makes everything
    worse-- ie., the optimal functioning of The Market is
    diametrically opposed to the optimal functioning of the
    platform in question-- and more predatory."

I actually think it's a pretty strong argument for alternate
models for news agencies, whether non-profits or (possibly)
government supported-- though with government support it can be
tricky to maintain independence.

It's not however clear to me that what we're looking at is the
"optimal functioning of The Market"-- it's more like an
increasingly desperate and counterproductive spasm: there's an
arms race of increasingly intrusive ads that's promoting the
development and widespread use of ad blockers in a situation
where no one is really making any money except for some big
players like google and facebook.

Have you ever pondered why internet advertising is valuable at
all?  If you take a poll of the intelligent people you know, I
think you'll find that none of them actually respond positively
to advertising -- which means that either the people paying for
the ads are deluded about their value, or there's another class
of *very stupid* people that is essentially paying for nearly
everything we use on the internet.  Something like subsidizing
education by selling lottery tickets.

    "In reaction to this dynamic, those who can pay will continue
    to pay, and access to information will become increasingly
    uneven and inegalitarian, not to mention increasingly
    fragmented and siloed."

But that actually *can't* happen, the news sources won't actually
*allow* it to happen.  They only act like they're selling
reporting, really they're in the business of playing king-makers.


                                          And later (continuing to
                                          talk to Jeff Martin):

You can call this an example of "market failure" if
you like, that's another way of saying the for-profit
news model is a bust.

As for "fake news": if the customers aren't able to
evaluate the quality of the product, you can't expect
market forces to provide a quality product.

Yes, something like "a small-donor, non-profit, co-op
format" would be the idea.  Multiple small donors seem
to be a pre-requisite for getting a news source to
work, and arguably that's more important than the
profit/non-profit distinction.

I'm not sure that the "co-op" aspect is that
important, but maybe.  It has it's own problems
though-- co-ops are often unstable because the
members burn-out on all of the work of governance,
and they can be destabilized by plants and
provocateurs rather easily.

"... they're selling ads on the premise that they'll
reach x number of eyes and garner y number of clicks,
because they want more money"

My theory-- I don't know if anyone has investigated
this-- is that someone who has taken the trouble to
install an ad blocker is someone who also has "sales
resistance" so high that their eyes are valueless to
the people buying ads.  Even if they got you to acquiesce
so they could increment the count of sets of eyeballs
they would be running a con on their actual
customers, and ultimately devaluing their ads
overall.

And arguably one of the chief difficulties we're up
against is sites targeting the portion of the
audience whose eyes can actually be sold.  It's not
just a "lowest common denominator" problem-- if
you're bright enough to ignore clickbait, you don't
count.


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