this is what needs reckoning with
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It bears repeating that shit like OANN, Newsmax, Infowars, hell even Stormfront, NEVER had a paywall. Meanwhile you get 2 free NYT articles per year if you create an account and sign up via email and start your free trial by inputting your credit card information and email activation code and
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people are just going to start reading free trash, and we'll wonder why they think prince william has aliens in his ass that tell him global warming is jewish, while voting accordingly
I think our model has to be crowd-funded patron support a la NPR and Pro Publica and Wikipedia so independent sources don't have to charge or advertise boner pills or bow to billionaires
I understand that journalists need to be paid though. I don’t know what solutions there are.
The old model of paying by the newspaper was way more accessible than subscriptions to a website.
It’s not big budget ads, or subscriptions, or one off purchases, that they really miss but the classifieds.
You don't need them for free, you need your own media.
I grew up watching the nightly news EVERY NIGHT before bed because it was "free" on broadcast TV.
YT isn't necessarily a problem, the issue is volume (and the algorithms); high quality stuff is slow to produce, easily drowned out by the sheer volume of right wingers rambling about outrage bait
I remember having some hope for positive change a few years ago when 'breadtube' first emerged but it seems to have lost momentum
Algorithm definitely favours the right, I actively seek out left content but still get bombarded with 67 dave rubin clips every time I open YT
https://github.com/bpc-clone/bypass-paywalls-firefox-clean
The problem is that they are all god awful, already bought and paid for by gazillionaires, publishing misleading trash all the time. I am absolutely unwilling to give them any money.
Haven't found one yet.
And well, now we even have machine-generated bullshit!
https://www.statista.com/statistics/381569/leading-news-and-media-sites-usa-by-share-of-visits/
Guardian is unpaywalled. Not sure how well that's working out for them.
The WSJ Editorial Board is behind a paywall.
NYT podcasts are not paywalled.
I think there's less of a pattern here than you think.
it's not all about national news
right now, I'm pointing out a change in conditions which many aren't reckoning with in hopes we will work to change them.
Journalism focused on truth is not going to be funded by moneyed interests, it is going to run counter to their agenda.
NYT can start selling its own scam products, but I don't think that makes things better.
I'm not sure how we get over the pay/accessibility wall. :(
There's gotta be a way to provide accurate and free news.
And you can have sponsors that dont interfere with the message. I mean, Some More News seems to do fine.
we have some influences - what is and is not a "controversial topic" or which might get us age-restricted - but there's also YT Premium which functionally nukes that, too.
I think ultimately the model needs to be that of a non-profit.
Most people don't want this content though, nor seek it out. There must be reasons.
i think that's super fucking wrong, but while it sticks around we just keep backsliding
just look at a white house press briefing at basically any point in the last few decades
It's an excuse to feel smart for refusing to even discuss anything except a vague vision of utopia. Nihilism with extra steps.
But maybe I'm naive. Maybe the idea of a single, universal truth is impossibly quaint in an age where you can pick whatever truth you like the look of most.
It’s extremely difficult to keep something like that going without large consistent donors.
But in the real world, that just turns into state propaganda...
Not sure this would be enough to maintain the news since honestly from what I can tell journalism is expensive.
Then again that is also a problem with current journals.
Both of those already have at-scale benefits and existing infrastructure
No, I'm not saying Wikipedia is free of problems. But right now it's, I believe, undeniably the safest place on the internet to go for reference information.
people don't discern propaganda from actual information, and if they want to consume propaganda, that's 'free'
Mostly seen it on regional Gannett papers, though rarely.
Set up as a non-profit, take capped donations to give access to those w/o means to pay. Be transparent. But funding has to be there.
Ars Technica has a union writing staff, and we don't sell our editorial control to anyone
That costs money. If you don't want paywalls—and we haven't had to do one yet—people have to pay us somehow, staff can't work for free. Donations aren't a model
Benevolent billionaires not looking so hot right now, but even that's honestly better 🙃
my ideas are getting worse
Our subs 100% contribute, but they're not close to carrying the weight
I'm not saying that because I think Patreon is a better solution - but it does have the benefit that a lot of people are already there and adding an Ars contribution is just a few clicks of work.
You're right though in that it would be lower friction, on boarding people is always part of the challenge
My honest take? Relying on third party platforms is a mistake, orgs should own their support infrastructure
though to be quite honest, I don't love Patreon having so much influence.
that trust is the foundation of any opinion shift
Rather it’s traditional media’s inability to adapt to new outlets to share information.
Not advocating for world full of subscriptions. More that old media hasn’t done enough to reach new audiences.
Open that Patreon, put that exposé directly onto YouTube, and serve society directly.
And about investigative reporting, Pro Publica is an amazing non-profit.
But there is no infrastructure for real progressive journalism.
And no, corporate media is not progressive. They have a profit motive
@humanistreport.bsky.social is an obvious good choice.
I got Trump-related news from Brian Tyler Cohen
Mehdi Hasan's new channel, Zeteo
TRT world
More Perfect Union
And even still, the Chicago papers have pretty shit coverage of the suburbs. The Daily Herald does much more coverage of the suburbs but they, too, are paywalled and in a rather clunky way.
Urbana's WILL The 21st was usually more relevant on a topic to stories ratio.
*Small but not too far off exaggeration
The days of the "CONGRATULATIONS YOU'RE THE 1 MILLIONTH VISITOR" pop-ups are not days that I miss.
honestly I think it's that simple. my videos objectively shouldn't do well - I talk about the most mundane shit you can imagine, but I know how to find and tell a story. it keeps people's attention.
that's just not happening in much of leftist discourse.
and, hot take, they need storytellers who are willing to explain things to those listening and not get frustrated that explanation is needed.
i used to be able to tell the Tribune was a newspaper and a pamphlet was a pamphlet. now online they both look the same, and filtered through social media the distinction is even blurrier.
I think we need to rethink how we get our messaging out, relying on the traditional 3rd estate is dangerous, look at WAPOW and Twitter as what can happen if ownership disagrees with the message.
12ft.io, https://archive.ph, repeatedly clicking the "reader view" button, https://archive.org, searching google for "cache:" plus the desired url w/no spaces...
learn to delete site cookies for limited-free-articles-per-month sites
and also, it's good to pay for stuff! it's just that 100 subs is not possible for most, so pick & choose what you can support.