One argument put forward by the government in support of their proposal to have Facebook and Google pay some but not all Australian news outlets has been challenges.
The Giant Stuff news and information business in New Zealand quit Facebook in July.
On ABC radio’s AM this morning information was shared indicating that the traffic impact for the news site has been minimal.
While I have shared my opinions here and here, I’ll note, again, that I think the code proposed by the government is poor policy that is being propagated to appease supporters. It is not the wise action of a free market economy. It is technically ignorant of how the platforms work and the control the publishers have.
The publishers set to benefit from the code, if there is a benefit, have broken business models. I doubt that any mon ey that may flow from implementing the code would support good journalism in Australia. That, in my view, is up to individual Australians, through the choices we make.
Stuff NZ was sold by nine entertainment in a management buy out for $1 Dollar. (And that’s a NZ dollar too!) Maybe they should rename themselves Stuffed. They can join all the other sources of journalism stuffed by the parasites at Google at Facebook.