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Comment by bbarn | Hacker News Reader

Media is one of the most complicated problems we face in this age. We have on one side a desire for information to be free, and on the other side a desire to profit for one's labor. The middle ground between that is to attract people to give you some of their money for your labor, which changes the nature of the published works. Now your published works must not only be informative, but exciting, and more so than any competition that exists.

This, left unchecked, turns into shock-journalism, or journalism sponsored by entities that may want to sway your opinion on other topics, all the while requiring more advanced modes of convincing you to subscribe - either with your attention or your money.

It's not just a problem of the mechanics of how to pay for something, it's an existential problem of news in general.

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Where does advertising fit into this viewpoint?

It used to be an ideal choice, but as article correctly mentions - we killed it. First some websites got way too greedy with annoying and harmful ads, then the adblockers cut all ad revenue to maybe 1/3 of what it was and then Google and Facebook took over.

Not the ideal choice - who provides the money becomes the customer, and keeping the customer happy is important.

I used to run a newspaper, and you definitely get calls from advertisers saying "I don't like this article, change it or I stop advertising with you". Tough calls.

> we killed it

No, "we" didn't. Adblockers are a red herring, the masses don't use them.

The real problem is that the metrics and incentives of internet advertising are such that newspaper articles are simply not attractive enough to justify their (high) costs of production. You read a given newspaper article once a day. You check Facebook or Google multiple times per hour. The newspaper barely knows your name and age, maybe where you live; Facebook and Google know everything about you and your tastes. And of course, it costs almost nothing for FB or G to "produce" a page of content (in fact, they get it free from others!), whereas a newspaper has to pay a highly-educated worker. Where will advertisers spend their money, where will they get more bang for their buck?

Advertising was the primary business model for newsprint (also cable news, etc). When the internet came along, the news organisations continued this model. It worked at first, but then (as TFA says) the duopoloy has effectively strangled the advertising model. And some organisations (looking at you Buzzfeed) gamed the system to produce clickbait.

Advertising isn't intrinsic to journalism. You can happily employ journalists and publish stories without advertising, provided someone provides the money.

As I said, journalism sponsored by entities that may want to sway you. That can be anything from simple advertising, to state-controlled media.

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