[warrenm]

I think the answer is much simpler:

- they basically started as listicle sites

- pivoting from silliness to "seriousness" is hard ... and when 'everyone thinks you're a joke' ... they're going to continue to treat you like a joke

that ... and they weren't very discriminating as to who/what they allowed to advertise

[dagw]

I agree that this is true for BuzzFeed, but it doesn't really ring true for Vice. Vice started off by doing some fairly serious and gonzo reporting on stories no one else was interested in. This got them noticed and some of it got at least begrudgingly taken seriously by more serious journalists. Say what you want, but Vice won real awards for their reporting. Then they more or less gave up on all of that and put all their energy into running a listicle site.

[Mistletoe]

I think it’s even more simple than that. They, like so many other things, were a zero interest rate phenomenon.

https://independentspeculator.com/tech-privilege-a-zero-inte...

[warrenm]

nice double entendre on "zero interest" :)