[phoe-krk]

No. They wanted Google to either pay or pay.

They never wanted Google to show displaying snippets, as we will shortly see when the French publishers notice the plummeting page views and issue "emergency snippet licenses" to Google in order to save themselves from their own greed.

[eps]

> Plummeting page views

Previous discussion on this had a link to the research paper that actually measured said "plummeting" in case of Spain - the decrease in traffic was well under 20%. Just FYI.

* Edited for clarity.

[Nasrudith]

Growth of 2-3% in anything you are actively work towards is the baseline success expectation as it is stagnant or declining otherwise. That is the equivalent of losing a decade's growth. Losing 20% of your salary would certainly qualify as losing 6 to 10 years of minimal growth expectation. It is twice that of a literal dictionary definition decimation. "Plummeting" is certainly not hyperbole.

[crazygringo]

Even a 10% can rightly be considered a "plummet" in many business contexts.

If a stock drops 10% in a day, that's gigantic. Considering how precarious the profitability of news organizations can be to begin with, a 10% drop that can't be reversed could be the difference between staying in business and folding, depending on how costs are structured.

If your traffic decreases by, say 10%, that's huge -- that's a plummet. (If your traffic decreases by 80%, you don't need adjectives anymore -- you're probably out of business now.)

[phoe-krk]

Could you link and/or clarify a little bit? Did their profits shrink by 20% to 80%, or by 80% to 20%?

[eps]

Their traffic went down by less than 20%.

[al_form2000]

Oh, under one fifth? Peachy.