Study Hall Digest 7/24/2017
Hi
The big news this week is that Vice laid off dozens of employees, including editors and writers who were part of its new union. The layoffs suck, but they don’t appear to be a sign of anything major at Vice. The company is still worth billions, it’s still raising money, and it’s expanding internationally. But we’re definitely seeing a pattern of writers who do traditional text-based reporting being laid off everywhere. And it just so happens those are the employees joining unions. Were the Vice writers fired because of that? Impossible to know. IMHO shouldn’t discourage anyone from joining a union.
The magazine at Vice is essentially being killed too, which sucks for journalism and sucks for freelancers, as it paid pretty well. Maybe Shane Smith can stand to chip in a few of the hundreds of millions he’s made, and buy fewer gaudy houses to save the rest of the company’s reporters?
Facebook announced it’ll allow companies to create subscriptions for news within Facebook. Seems like the company is paying lip service to all its critics who say Facebook is decimating ad revenue for news companies. I really can’t imagine many people will sign up for Facebook news subscriptions. Would you?
The way to make money and good products is to GET AWAY FROM FACEBOOK (and Google). That’s what pretty much every new venture is discovering, from Topic/First Look, to The Outline, to twee Danish news apps. I hate The Skimm with a passion but they were a pioneer in showing how much money you can make if you don’t let the duopoly of Facebook and Google dominate your ad business. It’s as good a time as any to read this story about how Mask Magazine survives, and how small publishers can thrive in a post-ad internet.
Final Thoughts
Should we be fighting the platforms? As previously mentioned, Facebook and Google are killing publishers. They take 2/3 of all online ad revenue. They are essentially a publishing industry duopoly. Yet politicians using antitrust laws against the two companies seems far-fetched. Should we be building a grassroots movement to fight them? Net-neutrality seemed pretty niche and obscure until it was politicized. Maybe we need to do the same thing for publishing antitrust law? After all, our livelihoods are getting gobbled up by this corporate publishing machine. Maybe our future as media people depends on challenging them.
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