Much of the media is currently going down the same path, refining itself out of existence. Aside from the New Yorker’s fussy umlauts, there’s simply nothing to distinguish any one publication from any other. (And platforms like this one are not an alternative to the crisis-stricken media, just a further acceleration in the process.) The same thing is happening everywhere, to everyone. The more you relentlessly optimise your network-facing self, the more you chase the last globs of loose attention, the more frazzled we all become, and the less anyone will be able to sustain any interest at all.7

Literaly the Ukraine war and western media for the entire year.

Now, large companies are cutting out their online advertising budgets entirely, and seeing no change whatsoever to their bottom line. One study found that algorithmically targeted advertising performed worse than ads selected at random. This is what sustains the entire media, provides 80% of Google’s income and 99% of Facebook’s, and it’s made of magic beans.

I learned something new. I mean not realy of course with the single digit click through rates and all it was obvious since 2005 that the advertising industry was all about chasing the long tail and “conversions” i.e the one idiot boomer that will load one of those 2008 style pages where you can spend $199 and get a worthless “premium” product on a credit card. Realy you can go to the warriors forum and learn how to make one of those too and if the year was 2012 you could probably make a few hundred at least if you pick the right niches.

But on the other hand I didn’t really it was this bad for the big corporations too.