Comment on Facebook ate and then ignored the news industry. It's hard, but we should leave it be

• Zagorath@aussie.zone ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Lemmy is actually far worse than Facebook*. We often get AI to summarise the article, or even just post direct links to an archived version of the article that bypasses paywalls and/or stops them getting advertising revenue or viewership metrics.

  As far as people not following, so? That’s not Facebook stealing value from them. It’s people deciding that there’s no value to them in clicking through. Probably in no small part due to a perceived decline in quality of reporting that means the headline is often all people feel the need to read.

  The fact that people see the title and thumbnail and decide not to click through is still not a valid reason to expect Facebook to pay news organisations anything.

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  * to be more accurate, the culture that has evolved on Lemmy. The platform itself is no better or worse than Facebook.

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  • CaptObvious@literature.cafe ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Friend, good editors are trained to write BLUF headlines. That’s just doing their job. So yes, FB still profits from their work and should pay for it.

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    • Gorgritch_umie_killa@aussie.zone ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Here’s a case i hope helps, and is illustrative,

      *Think of a newstand, an older style one. Painted dark green, a little kiosk with two stands either side, lets say street side in New York.

      The operator of the newstand sets the papers, magazines, et al, out along the racks. Its general practice to face the most eye-catching part of each out towards the eyes of passers-by.

      A potential customer stops walking and looks along the rack for a minute, looks at the Washington Post sitting there, maybe The Economist, but settles on the New York Times.

      That customer has seen the front page of the Washington Post, maybe even perused The Economist a bit, but they settled on the New York Times.

      In that situation are The Economist, and Washington Post entitled to a share of that newstands revenue from selling the New York Times? Afterall that customer did read the front covers, and then a little more of one of the rejected papers.*

      Facebook and Google, et al act as today’s equivalent of the newstand. The BLUF is no different from any other eye catching material editors/marketers put on their publications/products to generate sales. A marketer is trained to make a sale as enticing as possible, the enticement, in this case the BLUF, is not the product.

      The news business might suck at the moment, but the news media bargaining code is not the solution.

      Round peg, square hole.

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      • CaptObvious@literature.cafe ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Interesting analogy, but it doesn’t apply. The Economist and Wapo were paid the wholesale rate for their papers whether the vendor sells them, gives them away, lines his birdcage with them, or burns them. Whether he sells them or uses them for decoration is irrelevant. All the Code does is restore that dynamic.

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    • Drusenija@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      In case you hadn’t seen the BLUF acronym before (I hadn’t, so was curious and looked it up), it stands for Bottom Line Up Front and it’s about putting the most important information at the beginning of something.

      en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BLUF_(communication)

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