Today’s links To save the news, repeal the app tax: The latest in “saving the news from Big Tech.” Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. This day in history: 2013, 2022 Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current writing projects, current reading To save the news, repeal the app tax (permalink) Big Tech steals from the news, but what it steals is money, not content. Talking about the news, excerpting it, linking to it, quoting it – these are all beneficial, normal news activities. If you can’t talk about the news, it’s not news – it’s a secret. But tech does steal from news. A variety of monopolistic tricks allows tech to interpose itself between reporters, publishers and outlets, and the audiences they serve. By creating chokepoints between the news and its audience, tech can extract gigantic sums from the news. And because the news itself is dominated by the same kinds of extractive, vicious, gigantic corporations, the shit flows downhill: the first victims of attacks on news profitability are news workers – reporters, technical staff, illustrators, photographers. A news outlet has to be really starving before it turns to the money claimed by vulture capitalists who buy distressed debt, or hedge funds who roll up papers, or wealthy owners. Anything that can’t go on forever eventually stops. Tech’s ripoffs have reached a breaking point, and there’s a broad coalition of journalists, media companies, audiences and politicians ready to do something about this. Now the question is: what should we…Pluralistic: To save the news, repeal the app tax (07 June 2023)