Which companies are getting this 'extra money'? Certainly not the journalists or news organizations.
"but that in no way incentivizes them to do "real journalism""
Sure it does. If you actually have the money to send a journalist out and get a better story than the next person, you will. This is how it worked before the advent of severely diminished returns in the news industry.
In fact, most popular news sites today are owned or funded by extremely wealthy individuals that use it to push their own political agendas. This is because it's almost impossible to run a news business without this sort of capital. If there was a way for anyone to potentially make a decent living with advertising, this would change.
"Bullshit has better ROI than truth, and that's why there's so much of it."
I won't argue with you there. However, real journalism should have a competitive advantage. It doesn't because it's too difficult to make enough to pay real journalists. Our news landscape now consists of wealthy individuals that spew politically biased news (Breitbart, Huffington post), fake news sites, and the already established big players that don't need the funding because they already have decades of momentum.
Adblocking didn't teach the ad industry anything. It is a ham fisted approach that now only hurts the businesses that don't pay up:
These extortionist tactics don't give me any confidence that ad blocking is even being done for the right reasons. It's just a roadblock setup to make the Adblock companies money through force.
"but that in no way incentivizes them to do "real journalism""
Sure it does. If you actually have the money to send a journalist out and get a better story than the next person, you will. This is how it worked before the advent of severely diminished returns in the news industry.
In fact, most popular news sites today are owned or funded by extremely wealthy individuals that use it to push their own political agendas. This is because it's almost impossible to run a news business without this sort of capital. If there was a way for anyone to potentially make a decent living with advertising, this would change.
"Bullshit has better ROI than truth, and that's why there's so much of it."
I won't argue with you there. However, real journalism should have a competitive advantage. It doesn't because it's too difficult to make enough to pay real journalists. Our news landscape now consists of wealthy individuals that spew politically biased news (Breitbart, Huffington post), fake news sites, and the already established big players that don't need the funding because they already have decades of momentum.
Adblocking didn't teach the ad industry anything. It is a ham fisted approach that now only hurts the businesses that don't pay up:
http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/02/over-300-businesses-...
These extortionist tactics don't give me any confidence that ad blocking is even being done for the right reasons. It's just a roadblock setup to make the Adblock companies money through force.