Good. Google, like any company, isn’t the “good guy” here, but charging to link to content strikes at the very heart of the “inter-” in the Internet.
they charge money on presenting those links, traditional journalism is being relegated to the dustbin because google is siphoning off all the ad revenue which would traditionally be going to the actual content creators (re: publications), without the links, google would have nothing to charge ad rates on for their “results” pages. publishers/journalists aren’t asking for much, and google/meta are telling them to kick rocks. classic robber baron/monopoly bully tactics at play here. and now you know where you stand.
Huh? Showing news results on search is beneficial for the news sites, it pulls in viewers. Search engines have never paid someone for the privilege of linking to them lol.
which IS THE problem for new organizations whose only revenue comes from either subscriptions or advertising, and they’re getting undercut by the linkers who share their headlines/links while charging ad rates on the pages that host them. you can refuse to “get it” all you like, but it’s why governments from Australia and Canada have finally decided to enact laws to force these aggregators to pay those from whose links they’re aggregating.
I’m not refusing to “get” anything, this is just a well-worn argument that’s been tested. Yes, there will be people who scroll past but the net outcome is still more clicks into the website. Literally the same thing has happened in other countries. Spain tried to do the same thing and lobbied the government to enact a very similar law, Google news pulled out, and then the news organizations started seeing drops in their revenues and they had to persuade the government to reverse decisions. What do you think is going to happen here? In the end everything will go back to the way it was, except some lobbyists and lawyers will be richer and Canadians/Australians will be inconvenienced by having one less news aggregator to use for a period of time.
In Australia, Google and Facebook pulled out of news results for a few days, then backed down. There’s so much revenue in it for them - even if they pay a few million to the actual news providers, they’re still making massive profits.
I want Google to pay me for every click to my website. Why not? It’s my site that gives Google opportunities to profit.
