Nicholas Carr has a thoughtful essay on the impact of Google as "middleman" between content producers and content consumers, extracting trillions of tiny tolls in the process. He takes a particular look at the impact of this on newspapers, writing:
... When a middleman controls a market, the supplier has no
real choice but to work with the middleman - even if the middleman makes it impossible for the supplier to make money.
Given the choice, most people will choose to die of a slow wasting
disease rather than to have their head blown off with a bazooka. But
that doesn't mean that dying of a slow wasting disease is pleasant. ...
He goes on to argue that the news business needs to massively reduce supply to consolidate traffic.
Link: Rough Type. Thanks to Clay Shirky via Twitter for the link. --Dennis
Comments