Try and get past the fact that this is sort-of about Facebook. Because it’s more about the demise of news than it is about Facebook, specifically.
news organisations were never in the news business, Amanda Lotz, a professor of media studies at QUT, said.
"They were in the attention-attraction business.
"In another era, if you were an advertiser, a newspaper was a great place to be.
“But now there are just much better places to be.”
The moment news moved online, and was “unbundled” from classifieds, sports results, movie listings, weather reports, celebrity gossip, and all the other reasons people bought newspapers or watched evening TV bulletins, the news business model was dead.
News by itself was never profitable, Professor Bruns said.
"Then advertising moved somewhere else.
“This was always going to happen via Facebook or other platforms.”
It’s a really fascinating read. We can all agree that independent journalism is valuable in our society, but ultimately, most of us don’t so much seek news out as much as we encounter news as we go about our day.
I’m sure the TL;DR bot is about to entirely miss the nuance of the article. I recommend reading the whole thing.
Here’s a case i hope helps, and is illustrative,
*Think of a newstand, an older style one. Painted dark green, a little kiosk with two stands either side, lets say street side in New York.
The operator of the newstand sets the papers, magazines, et al, out along the racks. Its general practice to face the most eye-catching part of each out towards the eyes of passers-by.
A potential customer stops walking and looks along the rack for a minute, looks at the Washington Post sitting there, maybe The Economist, but settles on the New York Times.
That customer has seen the front page of the Washington Post, maybe even perused The Economist a bit, but they settled on the New York Times.
In that situation are The Economist, and Washington Post entitled to a share of that newstands revenue from selling the New York Times? Afterall that customer did read the front covers, and then a little more of one of the rejected papers.*
Facebook and Google, et al act as today’s equivalent of the newstand. The BLUF is no different from any other eye catching material editors/marketers put on their publications/products to generate sales. A marketer is trained to make a sale as enticing as possible, the enticement, in this case the BLUF, is not the product.
The news business might suck at the moment, but the news media bargaining code is not the solution.
Round peg, square hole.
Interesting analogy, but it doesn’t apply. The Economist and Wapo were paid the wholesale rate for their papers whether the vendor sells them, gives them away, lines his birdcage with them, or burns them. Whether he sells them or uses them for decoration is irrelevant. All the Code does is restore that dynamic.