I recently had a discussion with my father-in-law about all the subscriptions he’s accumulating for different news sites. He’s always been a guy that gets a few newspapers, but is finding the wealth of online news sites that are starting to charge for access something that’s just too much for him to stomach.
My only question for him was, “Did you used to subscribe to newspapers for al of these sites?” No he did not. He subscribed to the Toronto Star and one other newspaper that escapes me right now. The ad based “free” internet fooled him into thinking that he should be getting 6 different news sources for free, but the reality is he can’t afford the subscriptions required to support those 6 different sources.
Ads are Dying
At one point the things you like on the internet could be supported by ads. There was even more than 2 ad companies, but then Google and Facebook bought up all their competitors and we’re left with just those two places to purchase ads. Now that Google and Facebook have captured the ad machine of the internet they can start to enshitify it.
See, you have no where else to go so they can move from bringing value to you, to maximizing the value they can extract from you. That means more ads, that cost more to advertisers with little clear return as reported by Google and Facebook.
See there was also a time when which people threw money at the internet because it was cool and had a bunch of promises behind it. You’d reach a million people. Theoretically sites could get a corner on a market and then all the money that was dumped down the drain could be recouped. What they never told the users was that if the money was going to be recouped, it would be at the expense of the users.
The ad-based VC funded model of the internet we’ve had for the last 15 years has lead us to believe that content is free and easy. It must be free and easy because we’re not paying for it, we’re giving no value back to the creators because it’s valuless.
But the truth is, the free and open internet as we know it is dying. More sites we love are going to die unless we support them. Unfortunately we can’t support all 50 sites we like to read, at least not to a level where the owners can do the content full-time.
My site is a great example. I write because I like it, not because it brings in enough money to support me. My videos don’t pay for themselves directly, I do it because I like to share and sometimes someone hires me as a consultant based on a video. Ads don’t pay for it. Member don’t come close to covering the costs.
But maybe going back to a tinkerer, hobbyist internet is what’s best. Maybe we need more people that make stuff just because they like it and aren’t looking to turn it all into a big business.
I know for me, I’ll keep creating the things I enjoy and use the support I get to make more content.