Wouldn't an ecosystem of smaller / walled off news services promote polarization? Genuinely asking -- what you are describing strikes me as an echo chamber that may have the opposite effect.
I guess that's a chicken-egg question. What comes first: a polarized populace or free news?
People who polarize are seen and heard a lot: they use free news articles on social media to spread their perspective to as many as possible, triggering a counter reaction on the other direction, also influencing the journalists because they get clicks.
How wonderful it would be if none of that was free so people had to pay to read whatever has been spread. The blast radius would be limited.
My gut feeling is that 80% of the world are not interested in using news instrumentally to force political views on others. They may get caught up into it, but wouldn't if they weren't continously confronted with it.
It's the age old rule that 95% on internet communities lurk, and 5% post content. The 5% are more insane than average. :-)
Today in 2021 people are USED to seeing free news on social media. But that's just the current status quo. Imagine a society where people did not see or share stuff like that, as seldom as people share music or tv-shows or other kinds of content? There is nothing special with "news". It just happened to be the thing that's free and constructed to make people emotional and angry.
If there were only subscription services not competing with free, I think people would buy something that's as neutral and unbiased as possible.
realistically what's been upset is ad purchasing behavior which realistically could be seen as the origins of media bias in the first place [i.e. literally appeasing the sponsors]
People who polarize are seen and heard a lot: they use free news articles on social media to spread their perspective to as many as possible, triggering a counter reaction on the other direction, also influencing the journalists because they get clicks.
How wonderful it would be if none of that was free so people had to pay to read whatever has been spread. The blast radius would be limited.
My gut feeling is that 80% of the world are not interested in using news instrumentally to force political views on others. They may get caught up into it, but wouldn't if they weren't continously confronted with it.
It's the age old rule that 95% on internet communities lurk, and 5% post content. The 5% are more insane than average. :-)
Today in 2021 people are USED to seeing free news on social media. But that's just the current status quo. Imagine a society where people did not see or share stuff like that, as seldom as people share music or tv-shows or other kinds of content? There is nothing special with "news". It just happened to be the thing that's free and constructed to make people emotional and angry.
If there were only subscription services not competing with free, I think people would buy something that's as neutral and unbiased as possible.