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Comment by atonse | Hacker News Reader

It's unfortunate, but as someone who's been on HN since probably 2010, I remember the ethos of this site to news like this used to be a lot more "let's find an opportunity" – maybe I'm looking with rose colored glasses.

People would say "should we setup a donation site" or "how can we build a product that saves local affiliate stations money" etc etc etc. Maybe that's still happening quietly. But I just see a lot more doom nowadays in HN comments. (Just a feeling, obviously no data whatsoever to back it up)

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> how can we build a product that saves local affiliate stations money

Let's bring back those supposed good 'ol days!

What are some valid business models that could successfully fund local affiliates? Knowing nothing of the industry, some initial questions come to mind:

- Is there value in cross-affiliate connections and referrals where a broadcasting association could work?

- Direct donations seems like a filled market, but what about donation pooling?

- Does private equity have an interest in these affiliates and why or why not?

- Is there a product in marketing and branding local stations that appeases YouTube and related algorithms? Would this fundamentally work against the mission?

Thanks for humoring me :-)

- Are there potential alternatives for some of the alerting products provided by the rural areas, that is lost in this process?

- Can we also use some of the same tech that's used by influencers, etc to reduce the costs for local affiliates? Like could the shows be produced at home, with cheaper gear, reducing their in-studio costs?

- Program scheduling can be done in the cloud, and maybe the content can be posted on YouTube for more monetization options, however small?

- It could overall lower the costs involved in running a station.

We had 15 years seeing how well "just throw a startup at it" actually pans out

It doesn’t help that many of even those rose-colored startups created 15 years ago have since crossed the rubicon.

It’s solid PR to mumble something about effective altruism being the justification for predatory capitalist behavior.

It just becomes hard to believe after the company was sold and the employees screwed over and the customers screwed over and the founders used their gains to financially support whatever authoritarian fantasies they had all along.

Turns out, people who are good at being ruthless aren’t doing so for a secret ethical reason: they’re just ruthless people.

Yeah... I have no idea why HNers seem more negative these days?

I don't think it's HN-specific; I see the same thing on the other (local) board I spend time on. I think this is just human nature.

I feel like when society has an air of doom you are more likely to see it wherever you are. HN is still fairly international though.

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