Something’s just struck me:

GurtTractor wrote:

And much of what you described can be done online, at a low low cost relative to operating in a building or several buildings.

Even this isn’t as easy as you say. Our investigations work is all done offline. If you’re investigating Putin, you don’t keep everything on a computer connected to the internet.

Yossarian wrote:

Something’s just struck me:

GurtTractor wrote:

And much of what you described can be done online, at a low low cost relative to operating in a building or several buildings.

Even this isn’t as easy as you say. Our investigations work is all done offline. If you’re investigating Putin, you don’t keep everything on a computer connected to the internet.

Yep offline is obviously still really important. Online state surveillance is an ever growing problem, hence the huge importance of encryption in communications.

I'm not pro fucking google. Also I do think there's a problem, but not in the same way you and most of the big media do.

That link for the lyrics actually shows what you are talking about, the previous article didn't. In the case of those lyrics google is showing the results from Mixmatch apparently, if they aren't paying Mixmatch then they should, but perhaps they are? As for the rest of the results those are all just a page title and summary and should fall under fair use. My point stands.

GurtTractor wrote:

I'm not pro fucking google. Also I do think there's a problem, but not in the same way you and most of the big media do.

That link for the lyrics actually shows what you are talking about, the previous article didn't. In the case of those lyrics google is showing the results from Mixmatch apparently, if they aren't paying Mixmatch then they should, but perhaps they are? As for the rest of the results those are all just a page title and summary and should fall under fair use. My point stands.

And I agree which is what I said in my point 2 above. Google pull that from the page title tag and description tag (in general, but not always). So yes fair use.

And historically that first result had around a 35% of the clicks of a page. Making that a zero result can massively affect site traffic.

Actually they do have the "People also ask" dropdown things for some queries, which show brief answers to common questions, pulled from various sites. That seems mostly alright under fair use I guess.

I'm totally up for good antitrust regulation. It seems like it can work, particularly if the likes of the European Union throw their weight around.

Anyway on to the next one. Supreme Court judgement against Uber is potentially huge. Basically, Uber drivers are to be considered proper employees of Uber from the moment they log in to the app to the moment they log off (clearly some Ts&Cs for this have to be sorted, so you don't just get people logging on and off from bed). Full employment rights: minimum wage, holiday and sick pay, pension, the works. Potentially / probably backdated so that's a big ol' bill coming.

Incredible victory for worker's rights, or a travesty of misunderstanding the gig economy?

I think you'll know where I stand. This could be transformative for the so-called gig economy.

Fuck the gig economy.

Yep, I like this ruling. It’s long overdue.

When your business model relies on legal loopholes (or outright lawbreaking) your business maybe shouldn’t exist, y’know?

Funkstain wrote:

Again I'm still not sure about how this impacts the wider "free internet" thing. If I, as a small platform / blog / research agency / web resource etc, put in links to published articles, I'm not going to get charged for this am I? But if I, as a huge platform which hoovers up 50% (google) and 25% (FB) of total internet ad revenue, at least some portion of which comes because (esp. in case of FB) I have a news service, and the ability to link articles with full text or at least summary points of text within a news feed, and do everything I can to keep you on my platform and not send you away to publishers' / content owners' websites, should I not be expected to share some of that revenue you've helped me gain with your content? It's not about supporting Murdoch, it's not about defending FB, it's about understanding whether the argument above makes sense. Who can say it doesn't, and why? Irrelevant diatribes about the state of modern media, and alternative sources of revenue, and "adapt or die" broisms, will be ignored for being dumb

I've already explained that with regards to news searches that google just displays the headline and a couple of lines of text from the article, and that this is basically fair use. Google and any search/aggregation site lists things so people can find them, sometimes it's more of a parasitical relationship such as with the lyrics example. In the case of news though I really cannot see how news companies are entitled to a cut. If governments want to tax the shit out of google etc and put some of that into useful public services or whatever then that would be great.

It's fucking weird (or not I guess) how so many folk seem to think that the news corps have a moral leg to stand on here, if there's problems with the algorithm fucking over certain publications or something then I would be more sympathetic. So no I don't think your argument makes sense in this context. This is all just big news media wanting a bigger piece of the pie.

The state of modern media is not irrelevent, they're clearly trying to find ways to keep financially healthy/profitable with paywalls and this sort of thing. And as for adapting just look at how the music and film distribution industry has found ways to innovate around the technology of the internet. Old industry and media should try to innovate, there's plenty of opportunity to do so.

GurtTractor wrote:

The state of modern media is not irrelevent, they're clearly trying to find ways to keep financially healthy/profitable with paywalls and this sort of thing. And as for adapting just look at how the music and film distribution industry has found ways to innovate around the technology of the internet. Old industry and media should try to innovate, there's plenty of opportunity to do so.

They’ve been trying to innovate for more than two decades now and mostly failing.

Just innovate as a solution is asinine.

Diluted Dante wrote:

Fuck the gig economy.

Yossarian wrote:

Also, the more I think about the idea of tax to spend more money on news services, the worse an idea it sounds. The idea of giving the government of the day the power to decide which news services to fund and by how much is absolutely ripe for abuse.

I mean, we kind of have it with the BBC right now. I don’t think I’m exaggerating to say that the political news team are a mouthpiece for the government with clear lack of journalistic integrity and rigour when it comes to challenging government rhetoric.

So yes, this is a really bad idea.

You seem to be under the premise that Google are 'hosting' the content. Do they? Tell me if you actually think that a headline and a couple of lines is hosting the content of the articles.

2 very interesting topics in this thread.

Starting with Aussie land and the FB black out. I think, regardless of the merits of the Aussie law proposed, that this type of blackout should send Alarm bells ringing to any governement. That a private company can, at a whim, take away so much access to services is wrong. 

An idea I bounced around in my head (and I've know idea if it would work or be even possible to do, or should be done) is that the internet has no become so important and a persons ability to interact with it so vital that we probably are looking at governments creating services that up to now have been done by commercial properties so that a country always has a base line of access. This would mean that you would be right have a email identity that is unique to you, a version of a social media profile that is unique to you etc. - just like a social number and passport. The idea would not be to track people on the net - you have the choice if you want to use it at all - but that there will always be a base level of service possible. 

In the case of a search engine this would mean a public owned search engine that will always list your countries websites. It is not monetised but funded from tax. In the case of a facebook type media, it would be a regulated (with clear rules/ laws even) forum in the style of facebook where only local business can advertise and the various departments of government can dispense links / info. It wouldnt be perfect but it would mean that an outside company cannot just switch off things it doesnt like. 

As for the gig economy.... I can only see this as a good thing but a few things I know from working closely with delivery drivers on deliveroo and just eat (as well as with Just Eat themselves, we are set up on deliveroo but they are awful to deal with in terms of interaction)

All the above is from an Irish point of view:

First, Just Eat are working on a plan to employ all their drivers and have been for a while. Their CEO is on record as saying he wants to get away from the gig economy. Just Eat also pay pretty decent from what the drivers tell me. Their system is open to gaming though and this means some drivers causing problems for all. At the moment they are so busy they arent cracking down on this. In addition, because they are still gig work, the onus is on the driver to declare earnings for tax purposes. Guess how many do? 

Second, Having worked with Doorhub briefly, the rates we were paying clearly undervalued the work needed to be done. Sure, I might have liked that cheap delivery price but it meant they couldnt attract drivers and couldnt support us in either our city centre location or our suburban location. They arent opperating at the moment but the lesson we learned is that a delivery driver should never be seen as low cost - they aren't. But I think many business still view them as such

Third, several workers do enjoy the freedom of the gig economy. I have not dealt with Uber (like deliveroo, they are very hard to get into person to person contact with) so no idea what the setup is, and I'm only dealing with food delivery but quite a few drivers enjoy being able to get out on a night of their choosing and work as much (or as little) as they like and earn pretty decent wages. End of one Friday night, one guy had clocked up well over 300 euro between tips from customers and his commission but he did work like a trooper. The problem is he has no security if he gets sick or his car breaks down (which happened to another guy we knew and we havent seen him in a while) 

Final point (and I know I've rambled) but I think Covid has shown how much we undervalue Lots of people. Customers need to be re-educated that a 3 euro surcharge on a 10 pound food delivery simply isnt going to cut it. Just Eat and Deliveroo get a bit piled on by the restaurant industry because of their commission but having used both our own drivers and Just Eat, its probably a fair price. If not, as I say undervalued.