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Comment by pyrale | Hacker News Reader

> This doesn't make sense. Newspapers want links to their stories.

Newspapers want monetization. There are three ways linking to stories equal monetization:

* Newspapers get enough ad money through these link. This mostly doesn't work.

* Newspapers cut their costs and deliver shitty clickbait.

* Newspapers get funded by "philantropy". This ranges from newspapers independently funded by trust funds to newspapers being bought by magnates.

Overall, we can see that linking is far from enough for most newspapers to publish independent, quality work.

> To receive a link is to benefit, everyone knows this except the government.

This appears to no longer be true. Groups benefiting from internet are mostly eyeball brokers, not content distributors.

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Newspapers lost monetization when they lost their classifieds business.

4: Links bring in readers who then decide to support the journalism.

I personally believe reader support is the only viable option going forward.

I whole heartedly agree - I think subcription is an immense boon to services like these... that being said, if Google parses most of your article into their news tab and then only serves up an amp'ified version of your site it can be quite difficult to actually present users with an option to subscribe. I'm a Canadian and I don't like C-18, but I also think that search/aggregation companies have far too loose a leash right now and are curating an environment where they'll take home all the revenue.

Well, first of all, Amp is opt-in. And second, indexing is opt-out. So the publishers are already in full control of how Google uses their content.

Or you know the fourth option - charge people money for access. Crazy I know.

I don't think there has ever been a successful media organization that relied on subscription revenue, except for very specialized areas (business press, science, hobby).

In general, the costs of running a journalistic organization (one which discovers news for itself, not just repackaging news from other media) far outweigh what people are willing to pay for this. Remember that newspapers, even in the times before radio was widespread, were always dirt cheap.

Not to mention, there is a problem of competition. Facts can't be copyrighted, so nothing can stop me from buying a subscription to NYT and reporting everything they write, in my own words, charging much less if I want to. Sure, I don't have their reputation, but if their subscription were high enough to cover their costs alone, plenty of people would chose to trust me.

> except for very specialized areas [...] science

For that specific example, science publications don't create any content, nor do they have paid staff curating collected content. That kind of helps their bottom line.

These organizations are closer in their model to Google than they are to news organizations (ie they gatekeep a specific type of resource that content producers need).

From what little I know from business press, in my business area they also get a significant share of their content for free, although it is much less predatory than science publications.

> Remember that newspapers, even in the times before radio was widespread, were always dirt cheap.

Not anymore - I used to buy the New York Post to read in a bar from time to time, and it was 25 cents (and arguably overpriced then). It’s how 1-1.50USD depending on day, if you can even find a copy.

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