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Comment by ceejayoz | Hacker News Reader

It's baffling to me how many major news outlets have willingly compromised their integrity in this way, to the point of permitting Outbrain/Taboola to use look-alike fonts and formatting.

In an era where legitimate reporting gets called "fake news", why make that easier to do?

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Because Outbrain and Taboola can easily be 1/10th or more of a legit site's revenue, on the order of millions of dollars. I'm not saying that's a good thing, it's a very difficult argument with the amount of money you could potentially miss out on.

It's similar with affiliate links. Make tons of money but compromise your integrity and point your users to the exit door.

Sure, in the short term.

The damage to their reputations may cost substantially more in the long run. Doesn't take many "I clicked a NYT article and it was a scam" experiences to permanently sour someone on the outlet.

How many people do care about reputation of a news source beyond "it's mainstream" vs. "it's a tabloid" vs. "it's something random I've never seen before"? I think most people these days don't follow news sites, they click through to individual articles from their IMs and social media feeds.

I cancelled a NYT subscription over their continued employment of folks like Bret Stephens (https://www.vox.com/2019/8/27/20834957/bret-stephens-bedbug-...) and Bari Weiss (https://theintercept.com/2017/08/31/nyts-newest-op-ed-hire-b...). It wouldn't be shocking for someone to do so over Taboola.

It's not a legitimate site any more once it starts making money that way. You might as well sell cigarettes in a health food store. Outbrain and Taboola are cancer and the world would be better off if their offices were flattened by a meteor impact.

I assert it doesn’t affect the legitimacy of the site at all. Also, I don’t think selling cigarettes undermines a pharmacy.

I may place less importance on “brand coherency” and more on “value to myself” than others.

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