Some reflections on the Australian experience and what they might mean for Canada.
After Google’s move on Thursday, Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez sent a written statement calling the companies’ moves “deeply irresponsible and out of touch … especially when they make billions of dollars off of Canadian users” with advertising.
Australia’s regulatory experiment – the first of its kind in the world – also got off to a rocky start, but it has since seen tech companies, news publishers and the government reach a middle ground.
Hopefully we change this law. Trying to charge people for links is incredibly bad. There is no need for any law. If the news sites want to get money for links they can just put all their articles behind a login gate and make them not scrapable.
Good thing the law isnt charging people but the richest and most powerful corporations on the planet!
News sites used to generate a lot of ad revenue. Now, Google and Facebook combine to receive 80% of all ad revenue. If you see an ad online, it’s likely Google or Facebook got paid for it.
But why do they make so much ad money? Because they host links to what people want. They’re making tens of billions simply by hosting links to the content of others, who aren’t making money anymore because advertisers give their money to the link hosters and not the content creators. This “link tax” is a way to ensure the content creators get their fair share. Google and Facebook don’t create content, they link to it. Why should they get all the money?
I have no sympathy for ad driven businesses. Let me buy access to ad free news and I’ll be interested. Fundamentally this is because the traditional news business model stopped working and they never bothered to update to a model that does work. Instead, they want to legislate that they get paid without even trying to adapt or improve.