Media, Regulators, and Big Tech; Indulgences and Injunctions; Better Approaches

Meanwhile, Google and Facebook created huge new ad businesses on the internet, that advertisers prefer, and some newspaper companies think that somehow or other they should get some of that money.

The other obvious problem with today’s internet is the economic structure. Chris Anderson wrote a famous essay called “The Long Tail” back in 2004 that predicted the internet would make media businesses less hit-driven and improve the economics for niche creative people. He was right in one sense: the internet created many more niche communities an... See more

The problem with the current arrangement is not that tech giants make money. The problem is that the only way for them to make money is through advertising that relies on the collection of highly-personalized data, tied to personal accounts that identify us by our email or phone number