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It would be nice if Facebook had some incentive for sharing ad revenue with large publishers, the way YouTube does; that seems like that would give at least some companies a way out of this hole. Is there any chance that someone like a Buzzfeed would have enough leverage to broker this sort of deal?

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The big difference between Facebook and YouTube is that YouTube has the content directly within their application, whereas with Facebook, users are still going directly to the original site to access the content. So in your example, BuzzFeed is still getting money from all the ads on their page when somebody follows a Facebook link, but Beyonce wouldn't be getting anything from a YouTube view without the revenue sharing.

But this could all change if instant articles catch on.

My understanding is that publishers can put their own ads in the instant articles, too. Unless that possibility is revoked, they still get ad views per article view.

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