We Need Your Email Address
www.404media.co
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.

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.

  • davehtaylor@beehaw.org
    9·
    10 months ago

    I 100% agree with their premise: AI garbage is ruining the web. Algorithmically driven results and content is ruining the web. SEO is ruining the web.

    Email lists, however, are not the answer. Feels like every damned site on the web these days pops up asking for your email address. I never give it. I do not want that kind of shit. The worst is when they ask for your email address before you even spend time on a page to decide if you even want to give it to them. Even sites that say “you can read this article if just sign up for a free account” aren’t getting it. I’m not signing up for piles of different accounts on different sites so that they can all spam my email. And asking for an email address just puts you in that crowd. I get where The 404 is coming from. I truly do. But the solution they’re gravitating toward makes them look like a spammy content farm.

    They barely touch on RSS as a solution, but that’s a better option than this. Is there a better solution? I don’t know. But it’s not this.

    • alyaza [they/she]@beehaw.orgOPM
      2·
      10 months ago

      But the solution they’re gravitating toward makes them look like a spammy content farm.

      i fail to see how this is the case when newsletters are quite a normal part of even reputable publications. for example: my state’s nonprofit news outlet has like five, several of which are paid newsletters that help them fund their newsroom.

    • Moira_Mayhem@beehaw.org
      2·
      10 months ago

      Is there a better solution? I don’t know. But it’s not this.

      If people were still interested in discussions of in-depth knowledge on a close cluster of topics, webrings could come back.

      In a way that’s kind of what Lemmy does, lets communities share links of interest, and a human curator has ALWAYS been better than any results google provides, even back when it was still good.

      And, tinfoil hat time: I think google actively worked to kill rss to increase searches.

      • davehtaylor@beehaw.org
        3·
        10 months ago

        And, tinfoil hat time: I think google actively worked to kill rss to increase searches.

        The death of RSS has definitely been a deliberate thing. It’s part of the same campaign against open API access. Everything is a walled garden now, and every platform wants total control over it. They want you on their app, looking at their ads, their content, driving and being driven by their algorithm. They don’t want third-party readers viewing an RSS feed, or a third party app showing their content. They want full control of you and how you interact with them. Nearly all social media platforms require you to have an account with them just to view their content.

        It’s made the web a significantly worse place

        • Moira_Mayhem@beehaw.org
          1·
          10 months ago

          You are absolutely correct in every point and it is a massive tragedy that we have been shunted into siloed tribalism.

          I don’t see an easy way out of this besides the total collapse of online advertising.

          Maybe this will warn people about the dangers of profitization, and how poorly regulated capitalism destroys everything it touches.