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Once upon a time, everybody linked to everybody on the web, and that was OK, because every business that depended on the web for revenue could go and sell advertising.
Dear Reader,
Once upon a time, everybody linked to everybody on the web, and that was OK, because every business that depended on the web for revenue could go and sell advertising. Then all the traffic started funneling through a few powerful web companies, and those companies gradually locked in huge portions of global ad revenue, causing instability for many of the organizations that write, research, and vet much of the content that actually makes the Internet interesting. In Australia, for instance, News Corp announced last year that more than 100 local and regional newspapers would cease to print because of the loss of ad revenue. According to many, this downward pressure on news revenue has also led to a downward pressure on news quality, with premium providers taking refuge behind paywalls and free news sites having less budget to explore important leads and develop original stories.
The Australian government recently struck back, proposing a law that would force companies like Google and Facebook to negotiate with media companies to compensate them for linking to their content. If the two sides are not able to reach an agreement, an arbitrator will decide on the terms.
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