Should the Government Take Over eBay and Craigslist?
This is totally off-topic from what I normally write about, but a quick mini-post on what I’m thinking about this…
I’m at UGCX listening to a panel on the demise of the news industry. The basic narrative, here and elsewhere, is that the web—through sites like eBay and Craigslist—killed the business model that supported news for a century. In other words, the profits from classified ads paid for, or subsidized, the news gathering and distribution.
If that is true, then why does it have to change? The companies performing certain roles have changed, but why does the overall economics of the situation need to change?
In other words, what if we placed a special tax on online classified ads and those monies were redistributed to news organizations? Or, what if the government simply nationalized eBay and Craigslist.
I suppose that’s politically impossible. But, if news is important to our society, maybe we need to think radically about how we save it. I’m just sayin’…
I would be interested in hearing your thoughts in the comments.
You are kidding right? Is this satire?
The foundation of our Constitutional Republic is a free and independent press. In our current climate where most media outlets are basically a promotional arm of the party in power, you want the government to nationalize unrelated businesses in order to fund the already complicit mainstream media?
Look up the definition of “fascism”. If that’s what your shooting for then well done.
Kevin
21 Oct 09 at 8:08 am
I see what you’re saying… journalism is important, so we need to keep it around.
But, let the free market do that.
Should the gov tax MP3 players because people miss 8-track?
Jonathan
21 Oct 09 at 8:25 am
The same problem occurs here in the Netherlands (and I guess Europe as a whole).
To be honest, I doubt financing businesses in decline would work. Although “evolution” is primarily a biological term, it aplies to other fields as well, including business. Of all the species (and in this case businesses) out there, only those who are able to adapt survive.
If the news-corporations fail to upgrade their businessplans.
(As an afterthought, this applies as well on the big music publishers.)
Tjeerd
21 Oct 09 at 8:41 am
You guys have sufficiently convinced me that this was a bad idea. Thanks for setting me straight!
scottporad
21 Oct 09 at 8:34 pm
in a related story..
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=115952
ro
22 Oct 09 at 1:28 pm
There’s many issues with news right now, a big one is that people do not want to hear ALL of the news. They want to hear what reinforces their beliefs. If you look at TV news, it’s about putting the news in a way that helps people internalize it.
Sometimes this is subtle like KOMO vs KIRO news; other places it’s more dramatic like CNN VS Fox News. What makes it easy for them is that the cost of their distribution doesn’t scale as directly as with newspapers.
Newspapers don’t allow one person to receive a personalized set of news. So shipping the a newspaper with all sections to everyone hurts their distribution costs. But trying to sort and deliver specialized newspapers would be equally as big a problem.
Which brings us to the internet (because I’m skipping radio), which has the cheapest distribution and broadest reach (in terms of niche interests). Which combine for low barriers to entry, and floods the internet with cheap but not ‘good’ news sources. Just look at how many tech/electronics blogs there are that just pass each others stories around.
One solution would be to have the government certify (who else will the nation trust?) people/organizations as carrying a certain standard for news worthiness, quality and trust and let the internet do the distribution of news.
It’s not perfect, but it’s any idea.
dan
25 Oct 09 at 10:11 pm