Online News Act could see Google, Meta pay combined $234 million to Canadian media
Online News Act could see Google, Meta pay combined $234 million to Canadian media
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Do you want to kill the internet? This is how you kill the internet.
This is how you isolate your journalism industry to get zero traffic
Seems like that would hurt Canadian journalism rather than kill the internet?
If these websites were someone's blog linking to a news article, I'd agree. They're not and they're not merely linking content. This isn't the open web, it's not the internet. These are platforms with captive audiences. Once you put that in the thought process, it flips the argument on its head.
And if Facebook and Google simply refuse to link to the sites that charge the money to link to them. What will happen then?
It's simple, they can either take it or leave it. If the assessments of profitability of this content are accurate, it will still be profitable for Google and Meta if they cave to demands. They'll hem and haw for a while, but they'll take the deal. At the end of the day, they're capitalist corporations, and they won't simply leave money on the floor.
That $234 M would be roughly 2% of the $11.2 B in revenues the two platforms are making in Canada. Does the Canadian news segment account for more than 2% of that revenue?
Not sure there's much reason for Meta to cave: Meta's Canada news ban fails to dent Facebook usage
Daily active users of Facebook and time spent on the app in Canada have stayed roughly unchanged since parent company Meta started blocking news there at the start of August, according to data shared by Similarweb, a digital analytics company that tracks traffic on websites and apps, at Reuters' request.
Another analytics firm, Data.ai, likewise told Reuters that its data was not showing any meaningful change to usage of the platform in Canada in August.
Doesn't seem like news was providing Meta much value.
If I was the head of either of those organizations, which clearly I'm not, I would leave it. I I don't want to set a precedent for a global link taxation system I'd have to pay on all of my traffic and all countries. And once it's demonstrated on news, slippery slope applies, and then applies to More and more linked content until it applies to all links.
So I think foregoing the Canadian profit would make sense from a business perspective
Too bad for the platforms the floodgates have already been opened. Australia has already implemented similar legislation in which they caved.
https://www.wired.com/story/australia-media-code-facebook-google/
I don't think it's in the nature of capitalist corporations to put long term strategy over short term profitability.
"Then, at 1 am on February 26, 2021, news content started to reappear, reversing users’ feeds to how they always looked. But behind the scenes, tech’s relationship with the media had permanently shifted.
Google and Facebook did not leave; they paid up, striking deals with news organizations to pay for the content they display on their sites for the first time. The code was formally approved on March 2, 2021, writing into law that tech platforms had to negotiate a price to pay news publishers for their content"
I think you should take note how they made the law after the deals were struck. Canada however has already ascended their version into law, prior to the deals. There is nothing to negotiate in Canada. Abide by the law or get out.
Facebook and Google have already destroyed the internet, by making hundreds of millions of people think they are the internet.