[HN Gopher] TechCrunch+ Termination
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TechCrunch+ Termination
Author : donohoe
Score : 26 points
Date : 2024-02-07 11:28 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.luxcapital.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.luxcapital.com)
| cactusplant7374 wrote:
| The "independent" YouTube journalists seem to be doing quite well
| with YouTube ads and Patreon. Although it seems like most of
| these people are on the fringe.
| rrix2 wrote:
| the ones i watch also seem like they are all working so hard
| that they're constantly burning out
| bookofjoe wrote:
| Spot-on. That treadmill keeps moving faster and faster and
| eventually everyone falls off.
| jaredwiener wrote:
| I'd also argue that they aren't actually _reporting_ the news.
| They are repackaging reporting someone else has already done --
| and those people, doing the reporting, are usually the ones
| struggling economically.
| bsimpson wrote:
| This is one of the situations where HN's "no editorialized
| titles" policy buries the lede.
|
| The interesting part of this article is the explanation of TC's
| business model: low-traffic deep industry coverage to attract
| high value eyeballs, and high-traffic clickbait to cash them in
| for ad dollars.
| tootie wrote:
| Axios has a good breakdown showing how we may be just past peak
| subscription:
|
| https://www.axios.com/2024/02/06/great-subscription-news-rev...
|
| A revenue model based purely on traffic officially died along
| with The Messenger last week. The pure subscription model lends
| itself to publishers that are truly "necessary" like industry
| publications or the few papers of record like NYT and WSJ.
| Everyone in the middle is now scrambling to build some kind of
| hybrid model or else just die.
| imzadi wrote:
| It's too bad we don't have a proper digital currency that's
| treated like an actual currency and now a get rich quick
| scheme. I'd happily toss 50 cents (anonymously) to a digital
| newspaper for today's paper when an article gets my attention,
| but I'm not going to sign up for a subscription to every paper
| under the sun.
| jaredwiener wrote:
| The problem with this approach is that it incentivizes the
| incredulous, overhyped, yellow journalism that people (at
| least claim to) hate.
|
| Good journalism takes time, and there are a lot of dead ends.
| Even entire stories.
|
| One personal example -- in a previous point in my life when I
| worked as TV news producer, I once thought I discovered an
| incredible example of government over-spending -- airports in
| the middle of nowhere Alaska built to handle the largest
| commercial jetliners. But after further digging, I learned
| that this really made flights to and from Asia safe; a pilot
| could opt for one of these long runways in an emergency.
| Suddenly they didn't seem so pointless -- and there was never
| a story.
|
| That's the kind of rabbit hole I would not have been able to
| go down if my entire paycheck was dependent on maximum
| eyeballs. Could it have been a story? Yes! Was it? No! Was it
| something I thought warranted a few hours of investigation?
| Yes.
|
| These various business models all have pros and cons, but
| ultimately, some form of community investment into media is
| needed. Whether thats through subscriptions, advertising,
| donations, or some thing else is still unclear. And of
| course, on the newsroom side of things, they need to foster
| the trust that they are looking into things that may turn out
| to be nothing, but also could be important. We as a society
| just need to find a way to pay for it.
| JohnFen wrote:
| Well said.
|
| Also, if people paid for news by the piece, it would mean
| that truly important news stories that aren't
| sensationalistic would be less likely to be done because
| there's no chance that they would bring in the bucks.
|
| It's a bit like movies: the blockbuster schlock is
| necessary to fund the production of other movies that may
| or may not make a dime, but are of great value nonetheless.
| imzadi wrote:
| I'm not talking about paying by the piece. I'm talking
| about buying today's paper the same way I would if I went
| into 7-11. I just want to be able to spend 50 cents or a $1
| or whatever a newspaper costs these days to get the paper
| without giving up all my personal information and a bunch
| of time.
| bookofjoe wrote:
| Spot-on. I've been waiting for micropayments since the days
| of the World Wide Web and still no joy.
| pradn wrote:
| Publishers already get micropayments from you when you visit
| their site - just not from you directly, but from
| advertisers.
|
| The same incentives for click-bait and low-quality journalism
| will exist in a world with reader-driven micropayments.
|
| The NYT now has 1/3 of their top area dedicated to
| "lifestyle" (what's going on on Tiktok) and "opinion"
| sections - both of which bring in tons of clicks.
| laborcontract wrote:
| As an aside, TechCrunch is just so obviously The gateway for
| people who are trying to get into venture capital.
|
| I find this type of thing very distasteful.
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