We Gave It Away for Free, and Now We’re All Paying the Price
The ongoing destruction of the media biz is the inevitable result of a foundational mistake made 25 years ago.
It's the least surprising news possible — more editorial cuts from a storied media outlet. The other week, it was my former home of many years, CNET, now part of the Ziff Davis media empire. These 23 cuts across CNET and its sister brands is at least the fifth round of layoffs (across two parent companies) I'm aware of over the past several years, not including a concerted effort from Ziff to get employees to take buyouts to reduce headcount. Those cuts were followed days later by a round of layoffs at Ziff's IGN brand. (And shortly after that, layoffs at Vox's food site, Eater).
And while I'm sad to see more great people cut loose from a brand I still feel great affinity for, it reinforces my conviction that this isn't actually the fault of the leadership at one company or another (not that they're blameless). Rather, it's a sign of an epochal shift in the larger media industry that can't be fixed with a pivot-to-something or more cost-cutting.
The issue is that the two main business models: selling display ads and revenue from affiliate clickthroughs, just can't support even a modest-sized newsroom any longer. And the same two backup plans everyone has, pivoting to live events and adding paid subscriptions, are out of reach for most publishers. Both require a huge investment to stand up and might take years before you see a dime, if ever.
And having spent 25+ years in digital media, I know you rarely get the luxury of thinking a couple of months ahead, much less years.
When I was the editor-in-chief of Gizmodo, I remember being asked about starting a paid subscription tier. But Giz's former parent company would barely invest in its existing low-cost pageview-seeking content, so how could it expect to produce anything that would warrant a monthly or annual paid subscription? Lots of companies like the idea of charging for content, but few want to invest in content worth paying for.
How much are you worth if you're free?
That brings me back to my big-picture theory about why the media business is in such a sorry state. We committed a foundational mistake when the first commercial content websites were launched late last century. The current destruction of the media ecosystem was set into motion 25-plus years ago when that first wave of digital publications decided to give all their content away for free, thinking that they could sell enough "eyeballs" to make up for the lack of a product readers would pay for.
Doing so, we devalued news, reviews, opinion, and advice content. It became a volume game, cranking out as much fast/cheap stuff as possible to flood the zone and try and grab some SEO juice. But everyone was working from the same playbook, using the same SEO strategies. It's no wonder we've been in a race to the bottom for years.
A handful of outlets have maintained a premium feel and a thriving subscription model: The NY Times, WIRED, The Atlantic, etc. Some others have tried adding paywalls, but the content doesn't feel premium enough to justify the cost (I'm looking at you, CNN.com).
As I've said before, individual or small-team outlets can build a nice little business as subscription newsletters or websites (Defector, Status, Game File, etc.), but the market can only support so many piecemeal subscriptions, especially as most charge $8-$15/month, which is often more than the big media outlets they're competing with (a full year of WIRED is just $12 right now).
I love supporting individual or small team editorial properties, but that solution doesn't scale industry-wide, and I'm concerned that the market is already saturated.
This quote from The Wrap on the CNET layoffs lays it right out there:
TheWrap’s previous reporting shows a marked increase in media job cuts in recent years. Between 2021 and 2022, there were 7,735 job cuts, a figure that skyrocketed 368% to 36,206 cuts between 2023 and 2024.
Here's the part that really bothers me. I don't have a great idea for what a sustainable business model for media looks like in 2025 and beyond. AI and general Google shenanigans continue to cut into the already-devalued eyeball business, sending less traffic to websites and backing publishers into a corner where they have to pull out all the stops to try and juice the numbers. I recently heard from employees at a big online publisher that they're being pushed to do a "Google Discover sprint," focusing only on whatever it thinks would appeal to Google's mobile app recommendation algorithm. If that's not writing for robots, I don't know what is.
I'll close with one bright spot on the horizon. This week, I spoke to a classroom full of NYC public high school students from across the city who came together in a summer program to talk about starting or improving their high school newspapers. These students had great questions for me, offered nuanced takes on topics like AI, and many of them were especially interested in putting out a print product, rather than just a website. The organization that invited me is called Press Pass NYC, if you want to check them out.
Sweet gaming laptop goodness
Some people love shiny muscle cars. I love overpowered gaming laptops. Here's a few I've reviewed recently.
Alienware 18 Area-51
Such a chill, understated design (from Alienware, I know!) even though this monster is powered by an Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090. My review and benchmarks are at Micro Center News:
https://www.microcenter.com/site/mc-news/article/alienware-18-area-51-review.aspx
Here's a gameplay video:
Lenovo Legion Pro 7i
This 16-inch pairs the same Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX processor with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080, plus a 16-inch OLED display. See the review and benchmarks are at Micro Center News:
https://www.microcenter.com/site/mc-news/article/lenovo-legion-pro7i-review.aspx
And a gameplay video:
Lastly, a sneak peek at a review I'm working on for the very cool/interesting/unique Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Rollable -- it's got a flexible OLED screen that rolls up inside the body until you call it forth...
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Spot-on assessment, Dan, and I fear that AI is the final nail in the coffin. On the flipside, I've long felt there were just too many outlets, too many small players competing for pieces of a pie that's only so big. Of course, they're the ones who can run lean and play all the affiliate games, so don't ask me to predict what's next. I tend to agree with you, though, that it won't be pretty, and I have colleagues who feel the same.