| > It used to be completely normal to get all of our news and entertainment through a small number of curated channels. Before the 90s, there were one or two orders of magnitude more channels for information than there are now. There may be a bunch of brands now, but all the people who own, run, and make the final decision about what goes on them could fit in my bathroom. Seeing our new, concentrated media culture as diverse requires the intentional deception of ignoring that this claimed diversity is delivered through precariously employed independent contracting "content providers" who all have to pass through half a dozen gatekeepers who have complete control of their income and message at any time, with no oversight (except through various forms of informal government intimidation.) It's not "what works for advertising," it's what works for the tiny number of incestuous oligarchs with media publishing arms and the politicians they pay for. It's also a matchmaking problem: publications used to have subjects, and advertise things related to those subjects. Now the content is generic, fact-free jingoistic sludge that people are tricked into reading by manipulatively vague headlines, advertising random shit that happened to win a realtime auction. I absolutely promise that you could keep your fishing website afloat advertising fishing gear, but only if the market and fishing gear manufacturers were operating individually and rationally, rather than based on calculations motivated by complex ownership structures and market manipulation. |