[mfDjB]

I've never really understood this argument, the content is still on the news sites right?

The news sites provide blurbs and descriptions through OpenGraph metadata that Facebook use, if they don't want entities to use metadata to make a link richer they could just remove the metadata no?

Basically I want to know how Google or Facebook are exploiting news content to make a profit.

[1vuio0pswjnm7]

Not just news content but all content. It is very simple. These are high traffic websites that produce no content. They are pure middlemen. Content is what attracts traffic.

Does the website pass the traffic on to the source of the content. The content is the reason for the traffic. Google and Facebook actively aim to keep the user from leaving the website and/or try to track the user after she has left.

What makes news content a pernicious case is the media and these websites are in fact in competition since they share the same customers: advertisers. Google and Facebook produce no content, nor do they sell anything. Except online ad services.

It is fascinating that commenters see this as a "shakedown" when it is tech companies who have raised this concept to new levels. Look at companies like Yelp and DoorDash for blatent examples. More subtle examples are everywhere. Middlemen everywhere. The internet is infested with middlemen.

This cannot last forever. Eventually the novelty of internet service wears off and it is just another means of communication. Tech companies are like switchboard operators. The internet is still in its infancy. They seem indispensible. So too were swicthboard operators, at one time. But in the end, we will not need them. That's innovation. Eliminating the middlemen.

[marcus_holmes]

The business model for news is "pay a journalist to write a story, serve that story to readers accompanied by ads, make enough money on the ads to pay the journalist".

Neither FB nor Google pay journalists. But they have the audience. So the newspaper posts their news story to FB and lets Google index it in the hope that enough people click through the link to read their story and see their ads.

But FB and Google both also serve ads along with the story listing, and they often post enough of the story so that the reader doesn't have to click through to the actual news site. So FB and Google get all the revenue that the story generates, and the news site gets none, despite having to pay the journalist to write it.

[postingawayonhn]

> But FB and Google both also serve ads along with the story listing, and they often post enough of the story so that the reader doesn't have to click through to the actual news site.

This is already covered by copyright law and the news sites can tell Google not to index the site and provide less OpenGhaph data for Facebook.

[marcus_holmes]

The problem is that the news sites don't have a loyal audience of readers, and instead rely on traffic redirected from Google and FB.

> This is already covered by copyright law and the news sites can tell Google not to index the site and provide less OpenGhaph data for Facebook.

They can't delist with Google, because then they don't get that traffic.

They can't provide less data, because then FB's algorithm won't shove their article into enough people's feed.

They can't sue for copyright infringement when they specifically granted both Google and FB permission to use their content as part of their listing.

It's a really tough position for newspapers. The solution is that they need to charge readers directly for news. But that would be a massively difficult undertaking (though the success of the Guardian's "support us directly" campaign using the Wikipedia model does show some hope). It would also mean changing a generation's worth of journalistic practices.

[bryan_w]

I don't know why the news media hasnt innovated like Hulu or Netflix or Apple music or Spotify or... has in the wake of the internet. It's like they think that they are a special form of media or something.

They seemed content to stand by and let their business die rather than adapt a new business model.