With search transitioning to AI previews and traffic to news sites dropping substantially as a result, how long will the news business model last?
For as long as there is financial gain to be had from it, business and investment news will continue to be a profitable niche. Sports also seems to do just fine, I don’t personally understand Sports very well, but even from an outsider perspective, there continues to be a lot of money and emotional investment in Sports, and that includes coverage of Sports. Not sure anything else is safe, but they weren’t exactly in a safe position prior to AI either.
After reaching adulthood I wondered why the situation was now different. Why did I read so much of it? Why did I care? Was the news I was reading important or was this just a thing adults did and bandwagons are fun?
It took me a bit to realize the economics at play. The valuable part of the news transaction isn’t the news. Properly reported news is the relaying of factual data. The portion of our transaction that has value is my time.
I as a consumer have a fixed amount of time in the day to be presented with things I’m supposed to pay dollars to consume. “Cheap” news outfits dispense with the pretense and load me up with ads. “Reputable” news outfits can’t do that so they are forced to make the news itself be the thing I pay for.
But the news sites that want the most money have the longest time to publication and are selling editorials rather than facts.
What sane person pays for that with money, much less their time?