Maybe it is all that time in Omaha near Warren Buffet…but look around-
Its a bubble that can’t go on much longer and I have to say I was right when I said it made no sense to begin with.
What am I talking about?
Two years ago here (november 2006 in the archives if you are interested) I got into a a little dustup about online usage and appropriation of images. Most people said I was not getting it, they pointed to all the seeming good that was coming out of sharing work online for free. I said, be careful what you trade for. Be careful what you encourage in this space.
This article today highlights what has come to pass.
Print media is contracting month over month and year over year. It has nothing to do with the quality of the content as some have argued. It has mostly to do with what is free and easy and convenient and available online.
Most magazine articles are photographed beautifully, written and researched, and exhibit a depth far beyond what is available online. They may be a week behind or a month behind, but that is not really the problem. They are being outpaced by online competitors that pay nothing for content they steal from other websites.
Online media can get by with half the staff and half the investment because for the most part they are not actually “creating” anything, they are just recycling what others have paid and are losing money to produce.
The analysis in the Times article is interesting, the quote is “The answer is that paper is not just how the news is delivered; it is how it is paid for.”
Think about this for a moment, it is also true of all printed media. Now compare that to “screen” media-and in this I am including television because it is the nearest neighbour. What is on the screen is “free”. This is the attitude. It is monetized through advertising or to some small extent by subscription-cable fees. But the real money is in distribution, cable networks, ISP’s monthly charges, etc. You pay for the delivery method primarily not the content.
So the internet has been a free ride so far, but there is no way that this can continue. There is no way that printed media can continue to subsidize the growth of online media. Online has to pay. Otherwise there is no money for editors and reporters and art directors. No money for foreign bureaus and investigative reporting. If you want to see the future of online media, look at Gawker, Myspace, PerezHilton, and Youtube. About the lowest scrape of the barrel out there. This is what “user-generated” content is all about.
Others may think that I don’t get it, but I think it has never been clearer now that we live in a gross expansion bubble, where nothing has real value because nothing is real. Earning money on the leverage of other people doing real work cannot continue. The attention economy nor the endorsement economy is not enough.
Well said. The situation reminds me of Ayn Rand’s story in Atlas Shrugged.
All very true. Even in the activists space, creating content and campaigns is not free. Time and effort must be compensated to be sustainable.
No question someone will have to pay. To me, though, the most interesting thing about Carr’s article was the disparity between print and online advertising rates. How did that happen? Personally, I’d be glad to pay for the Times – or whatever – online, just as I used to pay for the paper version. All they have to do is ask. I don’t really feel like it’s our fault that they’ve chosen this ridiculous business model. It’s a symptom of their lack of confidence. People, and advertisers, will pay.
Moving on to more important stuff, I can’t believe you don’t like Gawker.
Well done, Robert — I think that “g” is absolutely right when he singles out the lack of parity between print and online advertising rates. 1/10 cannot save these giant publishing Titanics, as they ram straight ahead into the iceberg that is their own incredibly poor judgement concerning the breaking of the traditional mass media distribution model and the introduction of the da Internets.
Grand week for photography, no? DRR, Time Inc., Conde Nast, Tribune, LA Times, Newark, oh my!
Roberto- I can’t help but be amused by all this, if it wasn’t so personal, but however little I actually speak of this, online and otherwise, I actually think about this stuff all the time.
I do not share my thoughts nor my predictions(which are very similar to yours) and for one simple reason: Your alcoholic father does not stop drinking because mama told him to, your girlfriend doesn’t stop smoking crank because you begged her to; they all do because they’ve hit bottom and want to and “sometimes” have too. The rest of them just take it to their graves. Happy Halloween.!
there is a saying in Business; if you can’t price it you can’t sell it…
I think partly media has been unable to price online usage correctly and therefore they can’t sell it. It might take the near death of printed media to establish a realistic online base rate. In other words, if advertisers have nowhere to go but online, that is where they will go.
And then magazines can come back as boutiques printed on demand in smaller volumes. Online would be the major market.