To be honest, I am not surprised. In this day and age of overruling greed and the lack of care I see a change and this change will set woe to Australia and its local brands. It all started with overly stupid shareholders and stake holders, who engaged greed driven politicians on prolonging the lifestyle that some would and should never have been allowed to continue. I am of course talking on those relying on journalism. This is not about the journalists, although they are not entirely without blame. The news was happy to side with a player who has less than 5% of the market. So they were happy to go towards a player who has a mere 1/20 slice of the advertisement cake, this was never about fair, or about realism.
In the first when we see “Under the proposed bill digital platforms would be required to pay media companies for content” EVERYONE is ignoring the part where the media can decide not to be on the digital format, they can decide not to post their messages on Google Search or place them on Facebook. So why is it an option. It is like advertising on the Yellow Pages and demanding the Yellow Pages for payment for the privilege of showing these articles. The ACCC and a few other players were happy to ignore that part, in addition we see them ignoring the fact that some of these papers have articles that ALWAYS push the link to a payment portal. There is more, these greed driven silly people relied on Microsoft and their Bing flaw to take the forefront into staging the response of “both would have to better compensate news publications for displaying their content, as well as give outlets more information about their search and newsfeed algorithms”, in this, the stage of ‘better compensate news publications’ as well as ‘give outlets more information about their search and newsfeed algorithms’, in this Microsoft who only has at best 5% is eager to increase its market share, yet there is a reason that they only have 5% and the news is only getting worse. As Australia moves away from Google search, they are cutting their fingers in a few more places as well. As silly people are all about their personal gains and personal wealth, the idiots owning the media that they are demanding payment for are all in a stage that they never understood in the first place. The Conversation gives us ‘The old news business model is broken: making Google and Facebook pay won’t save journalism’ (at https://theconversation.com/the-old-news-business-model-is-broken-making-google-and-facebook-pay-wont-save-journalism-150357). There we see “The code is meant to help alleviate the revenue crisis facing news publishers. Over the past two decades they have made deep cuts to newsrooms. Scores of local print papers have become “digital only” or been shut down completely”, as such, we seem to overlook that the elderly owning news media (example the Murdoch wannabe’s) never understood the digital part. We optionally see this in “To understand why the commercial news model is so broken, we first need to recognise what the primary business of commercial news media has been: attracting an audience that can be sold to advertisers”, Google already has the audience and Microsoft wants them too, so silly people (optionally including the politicians) are setting a slippery slope and Australia is about to lose whatever global foothold they have. In this the silly people are clueless on the damage that will hit.
This is seen in two parts, the first is “2021 Cloud Report from Cockroach Labs ranked Google Cloud Platform as the best-performing of the three major public cloud platforms, offering an impressive threefold advantage in throughput capability”, so not only is Microsoft out of options, they are severely outclassed by Google (and optionally IBM as well), a stage that is influencing a global stage that we see (at https://www2.deloitte.com/au/en/pages/consumer-industrial-products/articles/global-powers-of-retailing.html#), so consider the players that have some global visibility. Players like Wesfarmers, Woolworths and JB HiFi. All players that were until 2020 in the top 250, now consider that they are removed from that field. This is because Microsoft does not count on the global field, not with a mere 5%, 7% on the global stage, we get it that Microsoft wants it desperately, but the silly people never realised that the media is now influencing a stage where others will no longer count as well. It is the purest form of ‘Think local, act global’ it would sound nice, but it merely makes Australian brands no longer a global player, a stage that will make New Zealand the number one consumer target for Australian brands and wherever they are second place, they become obsolete. The ACCC should be proud of not comprehending the larger stage. And in all this as the Conversation informs us of “before 2000 print media attracted nearly 60% of Australian advertiser dollars, according to an analysis for the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s Digital Platforms Inquiry. By 2017 it was just 12%”, we see the initial folly, it almost reads like the setting of Alexandre Auguste Ledru-Rollin where we see ‘There go the people. I must follow them, for I am their leader’, but the media was never a leader in the digital media (or media for that matter), they were merely facilitators to shareholders and stake holders, as such ‘their’ people are already the population of planet Google and Microsoft wants to annex that population in any way they can. So whilst the ACCC is setting a Microsoft stage, the media is still clueless on what is required. As we see “the core of the problem is that funding such journalism through advertising is no longer viable. Other solutions are needed – locally and nationally – to ensure its survival”, it is the larger setting they all relied on advertisers, advertiser whores for a better reference, yet in all this the newspapers are all drowning most pages in advertisements, it is partial evidence of remaining clueless. The owners needed to act over a decade ago, that is seen in the decrease from 60% to 12%, a decade of decrease and nothing was done and now that they are desperate Microsoft steps in, they will save the day, or so they say but will they? They only have a 7% global penetration, they did this to themselves by forgetting that the consumer had become in charge to some degree, it is what Google wanted all along, they merely became the facilitator of whatever the consumer required and requested, the media does not understand as they think that they are the centre of the universe, but in a global setting with thousands of voices they are merely a discord in a choir at best.
So as the small players listening to the media are throwing away whatever options they have to the media, the media is locally acting to fill its pockets, although they will not see it that way and Microsoft is in a stage where they gain 25,000,000 bing users. And in that stage where 5G passes Microsoft by, the Australians will see a decade of hardship with no future options at all. Well some players will proclaim in their presentations that this is not the case, but when their presentations run dry and when we get to 2023 and players like Wesfarmers, Woolworths and JB HiFi will no longer be on a top 500 list, at that point some people will wonder why they listened to the silly people. I can only hope that my IP is sold before that because the hardship Australia faces with no global audience is not one I hope to rely on, and when you realise just how dangerous this setting is, you will not want that either.
In this when you realise that the media pushed you to a room in the sewer with that view, will you finally realise that the media, their shareholders, stakeholders and advertisers have sold you a bag of goods whilst calling it ‘life on quality street’? Who will you hold accountable the moment you realise that?
