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Comment by zozbot234 | Hacker News Reader

Wait, wasn't the NYT supposed to take a very critical look at everything in "tech", as a matter of editorial policy? Why were they giving such a glowing (no pun intended!) endorsement of crypto, of all things? Something doesn't add up here.

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Did you read it? I would not call it glowing at all, it seems pretty matter of fact and actually somewhat negative if you read between the lines. Opening with an anecdote about some scripted banter with Anthony Scaramucci (not a name that NYT readers have any good associations with), and then:

> The laughter has faded. Over the last few days, the collapse of a so-called stablecoin called TerraUSD has sent the crypto market into meltdown, accelerating a dramatic sell-off that tanked the price of Bitcoin and Ether, the two most valuable cryptocurrencies. At Baha Mar, Mr. Bankman-Fried was throwing a giant party for the industry; this past week, he was attempting to restore calm, tweeting long threads about the state of the market.

Then discussing how his awkward, unkempt appearance is actually calculated and intentional. And look at the final paragraph:

> Outside, the convention center was emptying, as hundreds of crypto enthusiasts headed for the airport. It was the calm before the coming meltdown. To leave the resort, guests had to walk through the Baha Mar casino, the largest in the Caribbean, a brightly lit hall of flashing slot machines.

The whole thing is framed around this guy hanging out with celebrities and lobbying government officials while his market crashes. Reading it for the first time 6 months after it was written, I think it holds up as an accurate profile with a bit of foreshadowing of what was to come.

In case you're not being facetious, Sam was the single second largest donor to the Democratic Party.

To Democratic Primary races. To get the pro-crypto candidate over.

What a lovely democratic process it is, candidates weighing up which industry interest has done the best job at wooing them. SBF is another reminder of how far down the list of priorities integrity actually sits (not that he succeeded here, but that he's in good company in the approach).

And one of the great innovations of crypto is sending untraceable money to corrupt politicians.

The Chinese banned it. Unfortunately Americans genuinely believe they are above corruption.

The average America has little personal experience with corruption. I wouldn't dare even suggest to a cop that he take a bribe to make my speeding ticket go away, while in many other countries that sort of low-grade corruption is standard. I think this experience leads many Americans to falsely believe that America is generally free of corruption, which of course isn't true in the higher rungs of society. Rich people in America commonly bribe politicians, universities, etc. It's a whole different game for them, they play by a different set of rules that most Americans have never been exposed to.

(I think it works this way across the anglosphere, not just America. The average Briton can't bribe the average British cop, but their royals/etc certainly pay to make crimes go away.)

He donated in the primaries. He told the democrats he would donate again in the general, but didn't. Like a month ago there was articles like "Where is the $100MM Sam promised the Democrats, he's donated nothing in the general"

...NYT...Why were they giving such a glowing (no pun intended!) endorsement of crypto

I don't think they did.

To check my memory, I clicked on to the "Cryptocurrency" keyword to see the crypto-related stories going back. It's mostly reporting news (which is mainly bad) and skepticism.

Is the next crypto narrative is going to be "why didn't the media save us?" I guess it makes about as much sense as all the previous crypto narratives.

"The lamestream media, whom I never listen to, failed to warn me!"

Anyone else remember those folks who suddenly realized climate change was actually happening and immediately started whining about how the media failed to tell them?

People failing to think critically about how media works while simultaneously whining about how the media works will never cease to amuse me. It is almost exactly like taking a bus to the end of the line and then yelling at the driver for taking you there.

SBF likely hired a PR firm that pitched the story to a writer they're friendly with.

Crypto doesn't pose an existential threat to the NYT business model like social media and search do. I.e. The NYT is in the advertising business. Google, Facebook, et al are direct competitors.

> The NYT is in the advertising business. Google, Facebook, et al are direct competitors.

The NYT is in the "providing content to lure people to advertisers" business. They don't sell ads to third parties. They could be very symbiotic with Google, for example. If Google was searching their content, bringing readers in, and supplying ads. But, instead, Google scrapes their content and helps people never visit their site at all.

> The NYT is in the "providing content to lure people to advertisers" business.

What does that mean? The NYT sells ads, i.e. you can pay the NYT to have your advertisement shown in the NYT. Google sells ads, i.e. you can pay Google to have your advertisement shown in Google results. The NYT and Google sell the same thing. They are competitors.

The NYT's business model is to sell their customer's eyeballs to advertisers. While Google does that with search results, they have a big arm that sells random third party eyeballs to advertisers, and then splits the money with the site supplying the eyes. I would characterize the first of Google's businesses and the NYT business as "providing content" and the second as "advertising".

In fact, the NYT outsources their ads to Amazon's advertising business.

Google's first party platforms (Search and YouTube) account for 85% of ad revenue [0]. Search alone accounts for 72%. I'm not really sure how AdSense is relevant to the discussion. Google is clearly a huge competitor to the NYT.

[0]: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1652044/000165204422...

I think crypto aligned itself more with finance in the last year or two. E.g. Super Bowl ads, big bank partnerships and that may influence how a company is covered. The culmination of this was Roose’s “Latecomer’s Guide to Crypto” which was generally uncritical.

The dollars add up, every time.

Not for Wirecard, or FTX.

Yeah, a lot of us have questions that Kevin Roose won't answer.

Perhaps that default-critical stance is just how they thought to solicit "donations" from the industry.

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