https://anildash.com/2024/06/14/the-new-alt-media/
There’s Flaming Hydra. 404 Media. Defector. Aftermath. Racket. Hell Gate. And so many more. This isn’t a new phenomenon — several of the publications in this broad category have been around for years. But we’ve reached a tipping point, for a number of reasons. The bad ones are obvious: the old news media is truly, finally dying. Distribution by social media collapsed as the neo-fash tycoons swept in. Something something AI.
Right! But
Paying for subscriptions for content has been fully normalized between Patreon and OnlyFans and Dropout and a lot of other human-scale media memberships. Many would much rather pay normal people every month than fork out for yet another corporate streaming service.
Those news platforms exist thanks to a lot of people sacrificing something. That is not sustainable nor scalable, hasn’t been for 30 years now. A myriad of subscriptions, which always go up in price and numbers, only sends readers to the cancel button. The math just doesn’t math without Universal Income. And of course, those payment platforms can overnight be owned by the old news media owners who are still so filthy rich that they can do that without losing a single yacht. Gawker went down with the quickness. I’m still shocked by that.
WordPress. Citizen-based, local-heavy news. Lower traffic. Genuine content. Things need to get more calm and governments need to step up to help their citizens. These are the breaks, I think.