404media should be fucking ashamed for continuing to paint a false narrative that these "rare books" should be fetishized and people should care deeply about what happens to them.
This isn't even good investigative journalism; their work here has the quality of a fucking tabloid.
These writers hate big tech *so much* they're betting that their readership can be fomented and unified against these companies over a topic that the readers will never understand.
"The vast majority of books produced -- rare or not -- end up being shredded because they're absolutely useless and there is zero demand for them"
🙉 BOOOOOORRRRRRIIIINGGGGGGG!!!!!
"The vast majority of books produced -- rare or not -- end up being shredded because they're absolutely useless and there is zero demand for them -- but now AI companies are buying them and scanning them before they get destroyed!"
HOLY SHIT TELL ME MORE
It's perfectly reasonable to hate what big tech has become. But if you're going to risk your reputation and journalism credentials to criticize them, at least stand on solid ground instead of relying on flimsy accusations that are so easily repelled when the whole scope of facts is presented.
This isn't even good investigative journalism; their work here has the quality of a fucking tabloid.
These writers hate big tech *so much* they're betting that their readership can be fomented and unified against these companies over a topic that the readers will never understand.
"The vast majority of books produced -- rare or not -- end up being shredded because they're absolutely useless and there is zero demand for them"
🙉 BOOOOOORRRRRRIIIINGGGGGGG!!!!!
"The vast majority of books produced -- rare or not -- end up being shredded because they're absolutely useless and there is zero demand for them -- but now AI companies are buying them and scanning them before they get destroyed!"
HOLY SHIT TELL ME MOREIt's perfectly reasonable to hate what big tech has become. But if you're going to risk your reputation and journalism credentials to criticize them, at least stand on solid ground instead of relying on flimsy accusations that are so easily repelled when the whole scope of facts is presented.
it's not like we can expect 404media to waste a bunch of time and energy investigating Big Tech's book eating machines and come back and write "actually... it's totally fine, this doesn't materially impact us in any way and they're probably wasting their money doing it so we can chill out, it's better than stealing ebooks right?" because their subscribers would overreact and start a boycott campaign against 404media for not fighting against AI. And if they didn't report on it at all, they'd be lambasted for that too.
It takes real courage to stare your paying customers down and tell them you've done your homework on this topic and they're wrong
It takes real courage to stare your paying customers down and tell them you've done your homework on this topic and they're wrong
They went from being an interesting independent go-gettem new wave investigative journalism outlet to "print anything that gets us subscribers" in record time
I'm not sure this is a solvable problem. People just don't want to pay for news that they fundamentally disagree with. That's why this kind of work needs to be supported by other news that they'll pay for.