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State Media Rushing Into Coverage Void Left By Dying Newspapers
derekmead writes "As newspaper budgets shrink, state-sponsored media outlets like RT, China Daily, and Al Jazeera have grown, hired more writers and offered more (free) coverage. Mark Mackinnon, writing for The Globe and Mail, explains the issue well: 'Throughout the recent crisis in Syria, and before that in Libya and Egypt, Xinhua and RT News have thrown unprecedented money and resources at reporting from the scene, even as Western media scale back on their own efforts. It's not too far-fetched to imagine a near future where it's Xinhua or RT, rather than the Associated Press or BBC, that have the only correspondents on the scene of an international crisis, meaning the world will only get Beijing or Moscow's version of what's happening.' But quality coverage still requires money, which means finding funding from somewhere. You see the effects of this every day: If your revenue is based mostly off of pay-per-click banner ads, a lowest-common denominator post, like a cheap roundup of cat pictures, is quite possibly going to pull in way more views for less money than a nuanced, deeply reported, and expensive dispatch from Syria. And, yeah, ads can be a bummer, especially when they're executed poorly, and paywalls aren't great. But when the alternatives are either fluffy, thin reporting; or worse, blatantly biased coverage sponsored by governments, we have to find a palatable way to fund good reporting."
This is the reason I develop Bitcoin. We desperately need a funding method to help keep the internet alive, but all the current "solutions" are easily corruptible (see PayPal/Visa/MasterCard and Wikileaks) *and* have a ton of friction involved - think of all the hoops needed for a sub-$1 payment - most just don't bother and go fuckit.
Once we inject the slightest flow of frictionless money into creative works on the internet, it will fuel a boom in media and free culture (including free software). Donation driven distributed patronage now becomes the norm and allows the consumers to connect with the producers on a more personal level, even becoming producers themselves.
In the online poker world, there is the possibility to send funds between sites. Because of this there is a rich community of people sending funds among each other, betting on StarCraft games, selling poker skins, posts with rewards for the best answer and so on. It's like when there's a tiny bit of money, there is a minature boom of activity and producitivity in that area. To borrow an analogy: in the highest poker play money games, nobody cares how they play and just click random buttons. But in the lowest *real money* games for 1c/2c, shit becomes serious. People start folding hands and thinking strategy. The leap in skill level is enormous, and only grows exponentially as you go up in poker stakes. Despite being a tiny injection of funds, people start playing to win, not playing out of boredom (mindlessly clicking anything or going allin every hand). Suddenly there is money on the table and the stakes have been raised.
I see the same thing happening with digital culture as Bitcoin becomes a real possibility in the future.