To be honest, I did not expect them to be as open a platform as they were for as long as they were.

Once the platform had enough content that was interesting to enough people out there to make it a noticeable alternative to "old media", it was clear that it's only a matter of time until the corporations buying the ads had to choose between TV and YT, since TV "news" was going down. So they did. Bam, no more business model for news and political/religious commentary on YT. Good luck getting commentary on war crimes in Jemen or apartheid in Israel monetized.

And now that so many content creators get their income through Patreon, it'll be interesting to see how long Patreon remains neutral.

It's hard for me to know why Putin is doing what he's doing. When he moved on Crimea, was he doing it because of the advance of European influence closer to Russia's borders? He's short on good allies unlike 'the west', so can he let people chip away at his comfort zone? Or is he a crazed imperialist?

I don't know. Why don't I know?

Because my government have shown themselves over the years to be a bunch of twats who will literally tell bare faced lies, whilst smiling, and when confronted with the horrors of what they've done they throw their heads back and laugh like a fucking sea lion swallowing a fish whole. And that's what they've done to their OWN PEOPLE. To other countries countries we declare war and send in the multinationals to rape their resources. I consider the invasion of Iraq equally dodgy as the invasion of Crimea. So my moral compass for what's ok and not ok no longer has a baseline.

On the other side, a bunch of people who used to know how the world worked back in 1970 probably thought propaganda was the best way to whip up some nationalistic pride and resentment toward the reds, but in 2017 the majority of young people don't trust a single word they say. So these 70 year old media mogul billionaires can't even tell a believable truth anymore - even if Putin's tanks were half way down my street i'd have to clap eyes on them before i could be sure.

Plus Russia's leadership is Putin himself, he's the spearhead, and he's very cunning. Our leadership is spread across a set of democratically elected people, half of which are both incompetent and self interested, while half of those remaining are merely one or the other. It's easier for one person to look competent and assured. Someone like Merkel has to share the associated incompetency of whatever the German equivalent of her 'cabinet' is.

Horrible.

17 year old media projects are like walking a tight rope over a wilderness of razor blades.

This one fell into the pit.

I agree with both @heropsycho and @Psychologic .

People comfortable with online sharing often refuse to acknowledge the cost of content creation. Since the cost of distribution is now seemingly free, there will always be an incentive to profit off of the costless distribution without being burdened by the cost of content creation. It's always cheaper to copy and sell than it is to create and sell. Therefore attempting to make money off some bits you strung together is a tough road. Someone can always sell those same bits and undercut your costs (barring any costs of overcoming technological or legal barriers to copying like they've been creating). In the long run, the continued status quo will almost certainly decrease the signal to noise ratio of content. Indeed, it already has. Fewer and fewer choose to make costly-to-produce content, and more and more are making lolcats and fart apps.

At the same time the industry refuses to acknowledge that the creation of many forms of content is forever democratized. The cost of recording what I'd consider a high quality album, for example, can now be borne by a dude in his mom's basement. He could even include some distribution and marketing. What service does the record industry really provide at that point? Editorial input? Yup... that's about it. In other words, the old media record industry could at this point be replaced by a handful of trustworthy blogs, and I don't know, something like Rhapsody? I subscribe because it's easier than pirating and managing a music library, I get nearly unlimited music, and I get to feel like I'm supporting artists. If I really like a band I find, I might even go to their show or buy their merchandise. I care about supporting the artists. Not dead tree media companies that were out innovated. If they had any sense they'd focus on their core business which is a reputation for suggesting high quality content. Further, they should focus on building that reputation with listeners, not retailers (something they abandoned long ago). They don't even need to worry about the rights to the content. Without an audience they have no product. They might as well close up shop.

Where I will agree, however, is in the realms where the cost of creating the content is substantially higher, for example big-budget film or video games. Still, I'd argue these industries aren't suffering to the same extent because as has been pointed out people still go to the movies, or game online. That is, they've still created a tiered distribution model that makes it an easier or a substantially better experience to pony up a few bucks to check it out. Even after a run in the theaters you can get napster or hit your local video store (not that anyone does that anymore, again, because they were out innovated).

Old Media Noob- "How much sideboob did you catch hold of?"

Anarchic Media Mogul- "... this isn't about snagging tons of rad, Swedish sideboob; I'm the captain of the ghost ship Wikileaks, and my anonymous crew need me as a man of legend... unshakable from my quest to free all information."

O.M.N.- "About those anonymous minions; some seem to not agree with you leaking names of operatives and whatnot, since, you know, Taliban's got computers too."

A.M.M.- "... who said that... was it Jake? Did you interview Jake? OMG that retard..."

O.M.N.- "Yeah, and some other folks are kinda like, 'woah, Julian is tweaking on being the big dogg of a group that one would assume would run fine in 2010 without a big dogg, or any set leaders for that matter, especially ones allegedly copping sideboobage'."

A.M.M.- "...I'm outta here."

I don't have strong views on Assange and I'm not informed of the rape allegations. I am interested in how the media has engaged with him, which has been almost universally negative. I wonder if it's so negative because they see Wikileaks as yet another attack on old media: 'That damn internet trumps us again' kind of stuff.

nice to see ambrose bierce here , the much maligned and frequently banned .
if anyone cares for old media forms , try "the Devils Dictionary" .

im really glad in our country the media (normally...see below*) care more about privacy. i think its really fucked up how they name ,blame and shame this officer on tv (and internet).

even though his behaviour was crazy and fucked up, he should only be suspended / fired / put in jail or whatever according to the rules/laws, not by public humiliation by the media for him and his family by giving everyone in the world his full name.

edit: wow, didn't even read the 'want to write obscene letters' and the 'There's a couple Robert McFarlands in the Lincoln Park area that I couldn't narrow down' comments. this is exactly what i'm talking about. and i'm sure others aren't bothered about posting the wrong guy's adress, i'm sure he's already getting some 'obscene letters', which is terrible.

* a couple days ago a major dutch paper posted a picture on their frontpage which they thought was the man responsible for the killing of 7 people on queensday. they got the picture on a dutch networking site (hyves), and guess what... it was NOT the killer. And guess what, the guy got threatened, even though the killer himself had died a couple days earlier (this was also in the news). Terrible. Even people riding the same car as the killer (a black suzuki swift) have been harassed...

Luckily, normally our (offline/old) media are a bit more careful and don't post full names of suspects or even convicted criminals. However, some people still seems to want to personally take revenge and don't care about the consequences for democracy, or even worse, if they get the wrong man, for an innocent citizen and his family..

Blah.

As a blogger nut, I take offense to the anti-blogger slurs put forth by these old media blowhards.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

More than just Ron Paul - I think this is shaping up to be a battle between old media and new media.

It seems like almost every 3rd Reddit and Digg post is a screed lambasting traditional media for their lack of coverage of the Paul Campaign.

The Cyber Collective is rising.

This is why I love the intertubes... In the days of old media, we never would've seen something like this. Firstly, no TV network would put this on air. And if they did, they would've added tons of graphics, sound effects, cheesy commentary and a laugh track for good measure - and I would've switched the channel.

It's truly an awesome sign to see conservative dinosaurs like Glenn Beck on "old media" like network television -- because only old people still get all their information from TV.

Conservatism dies a little more with each successive generation, and it is a beautiful thing to behold.

My apologies, dag, for crossing that line. I didn't think this necessarily qualified as 'snuff', but had I read the 'out there' thread in sift talk, I wouldn't have done it. I at least hope it spurs some conversation as to the place of footage like this, while we hash out where old media/government/authority controls end and transparency/accountability/'information being free' begins. (Which is not at all to say I think its place is necessarily here. Your site, your rules, no problem. Apologies again for not being clear before I posted it.)