[mensetmanusman]

Love the approach of looking at media through the lens of information theory.

A main point seems to be that free media is important.

It’s interesting to consider that the existence of google/craigslist/facebook destroyed the means by which the media used to fund their own existence and hire competent people with a high salary (now these people work in other areas of the economy and are compensated for their communication skills).

In an economy like this, we have no functioning media, therefore democracy is at risk.

[joe_the_user]

It seems like an abuse of the concept of "degree of surprise".

An article produced by a totalitarian state could contain a lot of "surprising information", in an information theoretic sense - if it described surprising wardrobe choices and surprising choices of meals by the fearless leader. Vacuous tabloids describe the surprising antics of the more mentally unbalanced celebrities but also don't challenge our world view. And made-up stuff like QAnon is partly surprise driven.

Also, the biggest hit to conventional media has been craigslist - print media never was primarily funded by subscriptions but always made most of it's money with advertising.