this post was submitted on 27 Jan 2024
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Humanities & Cultures

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AI stealing our work. The collapse of social networks. The need to pay journalists to produce impactful journalism. Here is why we are asking for your email address to read 404 Media (www.404media.co)
submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by alyaza@beehaw.org to c/humanities@beehaw.org
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this is an interesting article on the difficulties of running anything as SEO makes everything worse, AI proliferates, and things generally get worse for journalism. probably best summarized by this paragraph:

The long answer is that, through our own reporting, we are realizing that in order to combat the fracturing of social media platforms, a Google discoverability crisis fueled by AI generated spam and AI-fueled SEO, and a media business environment that is in utter freefall, we need to be able to reach our readers directly using a platform that we own and control. To do that, we need your email address.

but it's a very good read in general, and i'd encourage you to read the whole thing.

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[–] Radiant_sir_radiant@beehaw.org 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I agree with most points in the article, but why e-mail? What's wrong with a website where people can click on whatever they deem interesting, or (as suggested elsewhere) RSS?
Besides the questionable benefits of e-mail over a website, this is also practically guaranteed to deter most privacy-minded people. When 999 out of 1'000 websites ask for your mail address to send you spam, few people are going to take the time and read a lengthy explanation why this one website promises to be different.

[–] alyaza@beehaw.org 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Besides the questionable benefits of e-mail over a website, this is also practically guaranteed to deter most privacy-minded people.

i mean, i would imagine most people are simply not privacy-minded in a way that this is a serious consideration for them.

[–] Radiant_sir_radiant@beehaw.org 1 points 10 months ago

That's probably true, but I imagine there's considerable overlap between privacy-minded people and people aware of the existence of (or wanting to peruse) news outlets such as 404. It just looks like a largely unnecessary obstacle for new readers.