To save the news, repeal the app tax

The latest in “saving the news from Big Tech.”

Today (June 7), I’m keynoting the Re:publica conference in Berlin.

Tomorrow (June 8) at 8PM, I’m at Otherland Books in Berlin with my novel Red Team Blues.

Big Tech steals from the news, but what it steals is money, not content. Talking about the news, excerpting it, linking to it, quoting it — these are all beneficial, normal news activities. If you can’t talk about the news, it’s not news — it’s a secret.

But tech does steal from news. A variety of monopolistic tricks allows tech to interpose itself between reporters, publishers and outlets, and the audiences they serve. By creating chokepoints between the news and its audience, tech can extract gigantic sums from the news.

And because the news itself is dominated by the same kinds of extractive, vicious, gigantic corporations, the shit flows downhill: the first victims of attacks on news profitability are news workers — reporters, technical staff, illustrators, photographers. A news outlet has to be really starving before it turns to the money claimed by vulture capitalists who buy distressed debt, or hedge funds who roll up papers, or wealthy owners.