We published our @BetterBlocker spotlight on the surveillance-based business model of publishing over a year ago:
https://better.fyi/spotlight/
Are we gonna tackle this, @carolecadwalla, @johnharris1969, @Scottludlam?
The future of the free press and democracy depends on it.https://twitter.com/aral/status/977446618877382656 …
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“The core business of the plaintiff is to deliver ads to its visitors. Journalistic content is just a vehicle to get readers to view the ads.” – Axel Springer’s lawyer AS is Europe’s largest publisher. Their business model is the same as Facebook’s. https://better.fyi/spotlight/ pic.twitter.com/niSfVBOi44
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The source of the issue is not the platforms… (even for Facebook, but I fault them more because they knew/know exactly what they are doing). It’s the consumers who are to accustomed to everything being free and the advertisers and in turn advertising platforms
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Nope, sorry, that’s where we disagree. Blaming the people using these platforms is victim blaming. You can’t have a system where all investment goes into funding surveillance-based businesses and then blame people for using them for lack of alternatives. Problem starts at VC.
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Respectfully. I have worked in the space. It’s not victim blaming, it’s responsibility. people have known and ignored it for a long time. Have ad companies taken it too far? Sure! They crossed a line. But users are not without any responsibilities here
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I’ve worked in the space a bit also. My point is you cannot both build all the roads and sidewalks using slave labour and then blame the people who walk and drive on them for not caring about the injustices of slavery. We must fund & build ethical alternatives.
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Yea thats not the same thing
. Here is a matter of providing content people are unwilling to pay for using a means that they were ok with (ads) the platforms (papers) rarely understand that/how much the ad networks they use cross the line. - 1 more reply
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Atleast Guardian has a subscription model!
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Yea… the print industry is a little different in their motivations and reasoning though. Having worked with many in the past, it’s more like a move of desperation years ago with no clear path of how to fix it
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Indeed. And while some – like Axel Springer – are now adtech companies, there are others who can differentiate themselves with ethical, non-surveillance-based business models.
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Perhaps. But that is to them a risky and unproven model. Hard to risk it all like that
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What is worse is how you aren't exempt from the creepy tracking even if you are a paid subscriber. They are 'double-dipping', collecting both cash and data. I like the Guardian and I hope they will change this soon.
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And many, many other news websites. This excellent project by
@_vecna shows who tracks you when you read the news https://trackography.org/Thanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
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Years ago advertisers paid papers directly for ads, this paid enough for the content. Now ad platforms/buyers take a cut because they make advertisers lives easier… but now there is not enough money to go around esp when there are so many sources of content too
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Cool tech, a step in the right direction but the story needs to be clearer and I don’t feel like it’s the whole story, i think it only provides enough of a solution to keep publishers from becoming worse off but not to prosper… could be wrong idk
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