What is "news" worth?
To Google, it's "essentially worthless".
Well, worthless to its ad business anyway.
According to TechCrunch, "Google has reported the results of an experiment it ran which removed news from search results for 1% of users for 2.5 months in eight markets in Europe — claiming the results show that news is essentially worthless to Google’s ad business."
Google ran the test because European copyright law requires it to pay news publishers for reusing snippets of their content.
But if they were to remove the snippets, no payments would be required, so exploring whether "news" yields an ROI was the right thing to do from a business perspective.
Here's my controversial take on the subject:
Google doesn't owe us anything when it comes to news.
And neither does Meta or any other technology company.
News publishers have argued that the tech companies unfairly benefit from showing people snippets of the stories they produce.
Perhaps that's true.
But the question they should have asked themselves is this:
"Who benefits more?"
And allowing tech companies to show snippets of news stories that direct SIGNIFICANT consumer traffic to news websites for people to read those stories (and subscribe if they want to get past paywalls) benefits news organizations far more than it benefits tech companies.
Google just determined that to be the case.
Meta determined the same thing in 2023 when Canada passed Bill C-18 and told the social media giant it had to pay publishers for news links that appeared on its websites or make those links unavailable... and the company chose the latter.
So, is news "worthless"?
Not to me.
To me, it's worth a lot.
I like to stay informed about what's happening in the world and read different perspectives to inform my opinions.
I'd often discover interesting news headlines via Google and Facebook.
Then I'd click the links to read the stories...
... and when I clicked enough links leading to The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Globe and Mail, I realized not only how much great content I was consuming but also how much MORE I could consume if I could make it past their respective paywalls...
... I'd pull out my credit card and subscribe to each publication.
Google and Facebook were GOOD for news organizations.
But Google and Facebook don't owe us news, and if it's not good for their respective businesses, they are under no obligation to provide it to us.
Admittedly, that is NOT a great situation for the public at large.
It means it's more difficult to find high-quality journalism.
And the world needs high-quality journalism to be readily available now more than ever.
If you value top-tier journalism, support your favourite news organizations by purchasing subscriptions so you can easily access the high-quality content they publish.
Because the tech companies don't owe you anything.
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