You actually made the argument for the bill, and then twisted it to justify Facebook and Google’s domination of the ad market.
The specific problem they’re solving is that that there’s a majority of Facebook users who get their news from Facebook, and probably the majority of those users don’t actually click through, so the news organizations get no money. Facebook and their users are benefitting from getting headlines, but the companies incurring all the costs to generate those headlines are getting too little money from that to sustain themselves. This is why this bill has to exist and why it’s necessary to protect Canadian news organizations.
That is a stupid argument. I agree about the summary part, but paying even for just a link is idiotic. If someone asks me for the directions to a restaurant, I don’t have to pay the restaurant for giving directions to it. If they did ask for cash for this, I’d simply stop recommending the restaurant. I have no duty to them, and they have no right to me.
Facebook is doing the same thing. You want payment even if I only point people to you? Then I will simply stop pointing people to you. I owe you nothing. If I didn’t provide a summary but the people still don’t click through, then maybe your content is shit and people aren’t interested. Why should I have to pay to protect you from that?
The analogy makes no sense lol you’re not a content aggregator and people don’t eat directions.
News websites produce content that generates value for social networks. If that value is worth paying for having that content (the link tax) is a matter of accounting only. Facebook seems to believe it’s not for now, that’s all there is to it.
I said I have no problem with a tax for content aggregators. If they provide a summary of the content so that users don’t have to visit your site. That’s fair.
But wanting to be paid also for just a hyperlink? That’s idiotic. That is a service they are receiving (for free). Why do I say that? Because when social media stop linking to content at all, the media producers start complaining about reduced traffic. So the links clearly provide value to the media companies.
So they simply took it too far. “we want to be paid for the service we provide” (the content itself) is fair. “We want to be paid for a service we actively want and are receiving for free” (the hyperlinking to their site on social media) is not.
