- Joined
- Sep 9, 2016
Two clickbait organizations laid off significant portions of their staff this past week, totaling 1000 or more jobs. Along with it, twenty jobs at local papers across the country were shelved by Gannet, a print media company, though also seeming focused on OP/ED content. However, I am sure, this is not news to you. In the very long Kiwifarms thread on this subject much has been made on its connection to the Covington Catholic scandal, or to the low quality of the content these writers had produced.
And yet I feel that that misses the main point. It is not that a political stance has failed to turn a profit, or that legal issues are coming to bear, or even that the low quality of Buzzfeed lists turns off a wider audience. We have seen, after all, rightwing sites go under, high quality sites fail and many people far removed from outrage mobbing lose their jobs here. No, it would appear that in the internet, the land of the content for free, that profit is just plain hard to get.
Ads generating sales are a blue moon affair and pay walls, for average or low quality content, are death. I've never seen a pay wall work for easy to find content of the type you would see in a general news article- the type cribbed from a press release or deliberately leaked to media outlets with the goal of spreading a story. The reason they do not work is that content of equal quality is available for free from "gifted amateurs" or experts who would gladly shoot the shit for free in their spare time. This is true of youtube videos on any given subject, specialty forum posts or even media meant to be entertaining.
Yes, all media. It is my belief that the cuts currently facing magazines and print/online news outlets will in the near future be omnipresent across cable and network television, book publishing houses, all common news agencies, sports announcing/non-game feed programming and music media/publishing. Anything that can be adequately reproduced by a free voice will be and anything that can be replaced by digital distribution will be.
So what will survive then? Well, most obviously, media that cannot be adequately reproduced at low cost will remain intact, if reduced in size. This would be big budget film and its televised equivalent, triple AAA gaming (teams of more than even a few paid members,) pro-sports, the preforming arts and in one way or another paid access to "reruns" of already produced content. It is true, of course, that all audiences have limited time and will trend towards free leisure. However there will still be a specific want for big event experiences of the type listed above- and no adequate free equivalent.
Furthermore, media that does not rely on audience payments will also continue on. One example of this is the traditional fine arts like painting and sculpture which rely on a different financial model, one where their creations are used as financial holdings. Likewise, media which is not produced with a profit in mind will also continue without a culling. This would include government sponsored, student and influence media (that is to say, media produced by political groups or individuals with the explicit purpose of influencing an audience.)
So-called one man operations such as music, non-fiction writing, podcasts, or online personal branded content creation will not only survive but thrive in this new age of direct payments. With the presence of direct to author payment systems like patreon have led to a new age of amateur video and radio programming going pro. Music, especially, which can also rely on the event nature of touring should thrive in this new age even if individual musicians fail to attain the universal buy in that the general masses gave to their predecessors.
And what is the general audience to make of this? Will they miss the days of easily consumed mass media, even if it is they themselves who refused to pay out or click ads? My answer is that no, they will not. Payments for what they consider very high quality content (either big event purchases or direct donations to creators that the person in question finds to be uniquely engaging) and all you can eat low quality content for free is a model that I feel will be embraced by everyone. With the one exception being people who had previously been paid to produce content that can now be obtained freely.
Let me, as a final note, say a small homage to people who did produce what had been high quality work that is now obsolete. Disaster or war reporters, for instance, are now being phased out for local citizens on the ground with cell phones, general audiences are not missing out but the actual content produced is now being done by those who have the misfortune of living in the effected area. The men behind the camera, or even behind the studio working in finances, legal and even repairing the toilets at some of the organizations are going to have major life changes because of this restructuring of media, and through no fault of their own. Children's television, too, will probably be devastated- children do not have control of their own pocket books and parents are more likely to settle for free equivalents than opt in services. Indeed, much of children's television is already kept afloat by government mandates for educational content- which would falter if the number of broadcast television stations were to decrease in the way that this post says it would.
And finally, it is with regret that I feel we are at a point where we will soon be writing the obituaries to investigative reporting on town/city news which is already spotty. Most media today is generated with a national audience in mind, whether it is legitimate news or cribbed from the press releases of government, industry or special interest organizations. Producing local news stories on a national scale is a difficult endeavor, one which has still not been proven to be feasible. I do worry about this, legitimately, but I feel as though most people in my region do not. Alas, in this case I am not the general audience and if I want it I will, perhaps, have to be the journalist myself...
And yet I feel that that misses the main point. It is not that a political stance has failed to turn a profit, or that legal issues are coming to bear, or even that the low quality of Buzzfeed lists turns off a wider audience. We have seen, after all, rightwing sites go under, high quality sites fail and many people far removed from outrage mobbing lose their jobs here. No, it would appear that in the internet, the land of the content for free, that profit is just plain hard to get.
Ads generating sales are a blue moon affair and pay walls, for average or low quality content, are death. I've never seen a pay wall work for easy to find content of the type you would see in a general news article- the type cribbed from a press release or deliberately leaked to media outlets with the goal of spreading a story. The reason they do not work is that content of equal quality is available for free from "gifted amateurs" or experts who would gladly shoot the shit for free in their spare time. This is true of youtube videos on any given subject, specialty forum posts or even media meant to be entertaining.
Yes, all media. It is my belief that the cuts currently facing magazines and print/online news outlets will in the near future be omnipresent across cable and network television, book publishing houses, all common news agencies, sports announcing/non-game feed programming and music media/publishing. Anything that can be adequately reproduced by a free voice will be and anything that can be replaced by digital distribution will be.
So what will survive then? Well, most obviously, media that cannot be adequately reproduced at low cost will remain intact, if reduced in size. This would be big budget film and its televised equivalent, triple AAA gaming (teams of more than even a few paid members,) pro-sports, the preforming arts and in one way or another paid access to "reruns" of already produced content. It is true, of course, that all audiences have limited time and will trend towards free leisure. However there will still be a specific want for big event experiences of the type listed above- and no adequate free equivalent.
Furthermore, media that does not rely on audience payments will also continue on. One example of this is the traditional fine arts like painting and sculpture which rely on a different financial model, one where their creations are used as financial holdings. Likewise, media which is not produced with a profit in mind will also continue without a culling. This would include government sponsored, student and influence media (that is to say, media produced by political groups or individuals with the explicit purpose of influencing an audience.)
So-called one man operations such as music, non-fiction writing, podcasts, or online personal branded content creation will not only survive but thrive in this new age of direct payments. With the presence of direct to author payment systems like patreon have led to a new age of amateur video and radio programming going pro. Music, especially, which can also rely on the event nature of touring should thrive in this new age even if individual musicians fail to attain the universal buy in that the general masses gave to their predecessors.
And what is the general audience to make of this? Will they miss the days of easily consumed mass media, even if it is they themselves who refused to pay out or click ads? My answer is that no, they will not. Payments for what they consider very high quality content (either big event purchases or direct donations to creators that the person in question finds to be uniquely engaging) and all you can eat low quality content for free is a model that I feel will be embraced by everyone. With the one exception being people who had previously been paid to produce content that can now be obtained freely.
Let me, as a final note, say a small homage to people who did produce what had been high quality work that is now obsolete. Disaster or war reporters, for instance, are now being phased out for local citizens on the ground with cell phones, general audiences are not missing out but the actual content produced is now being done by those who have the misfortune of living in the effected area. The men behind the camera, or even behind the studio working in finances, legal and even repairing the toilets at some of the organizations are going to have major life changes because of this restructuring of media, and through no fault of their own. Children's television, too, will probably be devastated- children do not have control of their own pocket books and parents are more likely to settle for free equivalents than opt in services. Indeed, much of children's television is already kept afloat by government mandates for educational content- which would falter if the number of broadcast television stations were to decrease in the way that this post says it would.
And finally, it is with regret that I feel we are at a point where we will soon be writing the obituaries to investigative reporting on town/city news which is already spotty. Most media today is generated with a national audience in mind, whether it is legitimate news or cribbed from the press releases of government, industry or special interest organizations. Producing local news stories on a national scale is a difficult endeavor, one which has still not been proven to be feasible. I do worry about this, legitimately, but I feel as though most people in my region do not. Alas, in this case I am not the general audience and if I want it I will, perhaps, have to be the journalist myself...
