[HN Gopher] Surveillance Tech Write Press Releases for Cops; New...
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Surveillance Tech Write Press Releases for Cops; News Agencies Are
Publishing It
Author : rntn
Score : 94 points
Date : 2023-11-18 17:48 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.techdirt.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.techdirt.com)
| jawns wrote:
| We, the public, who are unwilling to fund quality journalism,
| have ourselves to blame for this.
|
| Granted, the ad-driven business model that enabled print
| newspapers to flourish in the 20th century made it easy for
| quality journalism to be sustainable. But unless we come up with
| some way to replace that in the digital age, we will only get the
| news that other people want us to read. In other words, P.R.
|
| I am a former journalist who has watched a number of failed
| attempts at alternative business models. I don't know what the
| answer is. But I sure know that the problem is a problem.
| underlipton wrote:
| >unwilling
|
| This is something that comes up so often, particularly in the
| past few years, and I'm surprised at how little push back there
| is. It's not that people are _unwilling_. It 's that the
| average American, in real terms, is increasingly _broke_. Any
| number of businesses would have collapsed in the last 20-30
| years - music, selling physical albums; cable TV, with
| reasonable bills; air travel, without security theater and
| sardine can booking - if not for ad-supported revenue, all-you-
| can-eat subscriptions, and /or barebones service. And that's
| because most Americans don't have the disposable income to
| actually buy and own things anymore. What I'll give is that
| it's been such a slow boil that I don't think people realized
| it before. But now that even basics - food, housing,
| transportation, education - are unattainable or warped to where
| the customer is the product or degraded to the point of being
| unrecognizable, there's really no excuse anymore.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| good with the flow there, US here and agree
|
| > most Americans don't have the disposable income
|
| odd formulas since lots of common urban addictions use up
| money, and lots of incarcerated cant buy things directly. Not
| an economist here, but I think of it like "circulation" in a
| body.. there are cold spots and overheated spots, not evenly
| flowing.
|
| Commerce in this US West location is not at all as it was
| before the ubiquitous phone, that is for certain.
| underlipton wrote:
| Inequality is absolutely part of what's masking things,
| yeah. And, yes, we've found cheaper and more efficient ways
| of doing things via ubiquitous connectivity and compute.
| Weirdly, the cost savings never really bolstered individual
| savings.
| gruez wrote:
| >It's that the average American, in real terms, is
| increasingly broke.
|
| AFAIK inflation adjusted wages have been creeping up in the
| last decade, or at least remained flat. What statistics
| support the claim that they're "increasingly broke"?
| jrajav wrote:
| That is incorrect. They are at their lowest point in 75
| years: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1065466/real-
| nominal-val...
|
| There is also deeper nuance to consider, like the fact that
| essential goods such as grocery items have been inflating
| much faster than other markets, especially in most recent
| years.
| creato wrote:
| Parent was talking about wages in general, your chart is
| for the federal minimum wage.
| jrajav wrote:
| You're right, I missed that in haste. I do think it's
| still worthwhile to consider the minimum wage since it
| applies direct upward pressure on other hourly wages, and
| the question is "how many Americans are effectively
| broke." The purchasing power of the absolute average
| American doesn't really answer that question with growing
| wealth inequality.
| underlipton wrote:
| Median. And my 20-30 years might have been inaccurate;
| compare to 1970, not 2000. It seems to be a "crime is on
| the rise" situation; a 50% gain after a 50% drop doesn't
| get you back to 100.
| creato wrote:
| Americans have the second highest median disposable income in
| the world (after Luxemborg), adjusted for PPP: https://en.wik
| ipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_c...
|
| I know your claims are generally accepted fact. Where is the
| disconnect?
| Clubber wrote:
| >We, the public, who are unwilling to fund quality journalism,
| have ourselves to blame for this.
|
| I'm afraid that even if good journalism existed today, yellow
| journalism will always pay more.
|
| >In both cases, the public is being screwed by entities they'd
| rather trust. The sad thing is neither of these entities appear
| to care they're harming their relationship with the people they
| serve.
|
| They don't and haven't for probably 20+ years.
| ofslidingfeet wrote:
| In this particular case, the government could also just not
| spend my own tax dollars on authoritarian propaganda.
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