
Brainjunk and the killing of the internet mind - everdev
https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/07/brainjunk-and-the-killing-of-the-internet-mind/
======
CM30
I love the assumption that all the free content is 'junk' and the paid content
is somehow better. In my experience, it's the free stuff from hobbyists that's
often better than the stuff printed by professional publications, since they
care about the topic rather than meaningless clicks and ad analytics.

Because the thing is:

> But if you actually want to learn, to improve your mind, to improve your
> awareness and understanding of the world, you have to shell out.

I don't need to shell out anything. I can find perfectly good content from
people that care for free, and I myself write perfectly good content for
people that are interested in the topic and provide it for free.

The people that want good content don't need to pay for it, they can find for
it free. And the people who don't care for good content now...

Probably weren't caring much for it in the past either. Do you really think
the folks that read the tabloid papers (or the Daily Mail) wanted a super
deep, thought provoking piece that questions every bit of their world view?

That the people who watch cable news shows or what not were going to pay for
something from a professional organisation?

That wasn't going to happen, and it didn't. Instead, the people who wanted
good content found they could get good content elsewhere, the ones who wanted
mediocre content found they could get the same stuff elsewhere and the old
media are left in a situation where they're really not the best at either of
these things.

~~~
Slansitartop
> I don't need to shell out anything. I can find perfectly good content from
> people that care for free, and I myself write perfectly good content for
> people that are interested in the topic and provide it for free.

What kind of content is this, _exactly_?

I think you're missing the forest by focusing on a few unique trees. I agree,
you're likely to find far better free stuff about tinkering around with
microcontrollers (for instance) that are written by hobbyists than you will
from paid publications. Taken all together, though, that kind of stuff is
ultimately very limited and misses whole _universes_ of valuable areas. For
instance: news reporting, history books, etc. require a breadth of attention
and effort to create that just isn't possible with a day job. If you want to
"improve your mind, to improve your awareness and understanding of the world"
you can't hyper-focus on hobbies.

~~~
cousin_it
Wikipedia, Project Gutenberg, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Cosma
Shalizi's notebooks.

~~~
rdiddly
StackOverflow

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tomxor
> So let me propose a little framework: “Enjoy content. Not too much. Mostly
> paid”.

High quality, good free content can still be found on the web. Some people,
including me, actually like the idea of giving away content for free.

I found a pretty strong visual content filter is the bling factor: you know,
those extremely insightful old fashioned no bullshit plain html sites with
minimal CSS, and no ads... One of the reasons they don't really need ads is
because it costs pennies to host and serve KiBs of content, there is no
"platform" or "ad engines" or any of that nonsense, it's just some people who
want to share some insights, they write some static html and throw it up for
pennies because it's KiBs. This style of content authoring tends towards good
content because it's not prone to hunt for eyeballs... it's just there, there
is no difference to the author or the content's existence regardless of how
many views and clicks happen.

That said it doesn't have to look crude, It's some clean minimal CSS design
can improve the legibility of the content immensely without bloating it - it's
just less common.

~~~
ryanianian
I agree with your overall premise - that attention-seeking ads and whatnot is
usually an indicator of bad content, but not always.

It's hard for authors to do this full-time without advertising. Who pays them
if not users or advertisers? Hobbyists and amateur publishers are one thing,
but people who do things and write about them full-time are searching for a
way to support themselves.

I would replace "no ads" in your comment with "respectful and honest ads" (and
even better if those ad fees are paid directly to the author or a small
distributor that is being selective about matching ads to pages).

~~~
tomxor
> It's hard for authors to do this full-time without advertising. Who pays
> them if not users or advertisers? Hobbyists and amateur publishers are one
> thing, but people who do things and write about them full-time are searching
> for a way to support themselves.

This is just my opinion: but I think this is the so called "problem" that
people need to not solve... medium keep talking about "how can we replace the
ad model", and hey, maybe in "reporting" style content this is a legitimate
problem, but going forward I don't see it applying to a lot of written
content, people with insightful things to write about often have those
insights because they do something other than writing for a living. Directly
making monkey off literature in the traditional sense is not necessary - but
making the literature can indirectly make you monkey by e.g improving your
employment prospects if that's important to you, not to mention writing
literature can be an enjoyable art form in itself.

~~~
ryanianian
That kind of writing makes sense for a blog, and most blogs I see/follow don't
have much advertisting that benefits the author.

> writing literature can be an art form

Right. There are some amazing writers out there who are true artists and yet
have to subsidize their writing with traditional employment. The writing far
outvalues the other-job output.

(This isn't a problem just for writers - many artists are starving of course)

I'd like to find a model that lets them do writing full-time and get paid in a
way such that better writing => more readers => more income.

It's unclear how to pay a great writer for their writing if not for ads or
directly from readers.

~~~
tomxor
> Right. There are some amazing writers out there who are true artists and yet
> have to subsidize their writing with traditional employment. The writing far
> outvalues the other-job output.

My "completely free" opinion applies more to people writing informative
content based on their successes and experiences separate from the writing it
self.

It definitely doesn't apply for those who are writing for the sake of writing
as a creative work, where the "other" job is just a means. In this case it's
back to the same question, and it may even suit the content more because it's
more about what people enjoy to read than what is objectively "good" of
"useful", in which case voting with your monkey seems not to corrupt as
much... then again there is hollywood and pop music so scratch that. I think
the best ideas about for this now are things like patreon - where the focus is
more on encouraging author creativity rather than monetisation of past works
like copyright. However this still has it's downsides... e.g it suits and
encourages continuous streams of small pieces of works more than masterpiece
style sized works.

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temp-dude-87844
I wonder, where does this assertion come from, that "readers crave brainjunk
at the expense of all other quality content"? The surrounding sentences
suggest that the author genuinely believes that demand came (and comes) first,
and "media companies have been more than happy to oblige". I posit that this
is a load of crock.

Free "junky" content is popular simply because it's free and plentiful, and
has a vastly, unquantifiably lower barrier to entry than paid content -- and
not because it's dopamine-releasing junk. It's popular because it's
accessible, requires little cognitive load to evaluate ahead of time, and its
momentary consumption is noncommittal. If article mills stopped producing
throwaway clickbait to fill an Outbrain footer, the corresponding "demand"
would plummet.

But this content keeps being produced, because business models on the web
suck, so every publisher feels they have to put some eggs into advertising.
Because reader attention has an upper bound, one publisher's gain is quite
often another's loss, and this directly translates into advertising revenue.

Given the low appetite for the masses to pay, Apple, Google, Facebook, Medium,
and incumbent news publications have all tried to solve this problem in ways
that further integrate advertising, analytics, and personalized suggestions,
and these efforts continue to face challenges due to the misalignment of
incentives.

~~~
ggg9990
The Gutenberg Project had free e-books decades ago, but people did not and do
not devour Beowulf the same way they do an Instagram feed, even though Beowulf
is even easier and cheaper to access.

~~~
IntronExon
Most people couldn’t even read Beowulf if you gave it to them.

 _Wæs se grimma gæst Grendel haten, mære mearcstapa, se þe moras heold, fen
ond fæsten; fifelcynnes eard wonsæli wer weardode hwile, siþðan him scyppend
forscrifen hæfde in Caines cynne._

Many people struggle to read their own language sadly, or comprehend stories
with any amount of depth. Old English is probably asking too much of them.

I’m not convinced that this is new though, we’re just far more connected to
the LCD than ever before.

Edit: Translation of excerpt:

 _Grendel this monster grim was called, march-riever mighty, in moorland
living, in fen and fastness; fief of the giants the hapless wight a while had
kept since the Creator his exile doomed. On kin of Cain was the killing
avenged..._

~~~
boomboomsubban
There are translations also on The Gutenberg Project.

~~~
IntronExon
Yes, I remembered that and included the translation, but I’d say that my
overall point stands. How many people would find the translation overly
accessible unless they were already of a literary bent, or just well educated?

~~~
boomboomsubban
It's an epic about a king traveling and killing a dragon, it doesn't take a
ton of education to enjoy. And beyond that, there are many books on there that
are accessible for anyone who can read. Your overall point seems fine, but it
agrees with the person you replied to that cheap and easy to get isn't what's
driving this.

~~~
watwut
> It's an epic about a king traveling and killing a dragon, it doesn't take a
> ton of education to enjoy.

That is an extremely simplistic look at literature - you just reduced it to
one sentence description of plot alone. That is not how it works and that is
not how it ever worked. What makes it hard is the way it is written, presence
of either dragon or killing does not make something easier to read. He is
right in that most people would not enjoy it.

> And beyond that, there are many books on there that are accessible for
> anyone who can read.

And many many more that are decisively not accessible. You assume that people
will dig for hours through guttenberg to find something fun and accessible,
but they wont and probably cant.

~~~
boomboomsubban
>That is an extremely simplistic look at literature - you just reduced it to
one sentence description of plot alone. That is not how it works and that is
not how it ever worked.

There's more in the text than just the plot, but the story alone can be
enjoyable without knowing everything else. I'll agree the old translation of
an ancient poem is probably still going to be a chore, a better example is
something like Dracula.

>And many many more that are decisively not accessible. You assume that people
will dig for hours through guttenberg to find something fun and accessible,
but they wont and probably cant.

No, I assume that people will find something fun and accessible by the same
means they do elsewhere, either through talking to other people or looking at
what's popular.

~~~
IntronExon
You’re giving me the strong impression of someone who is very bright, and has
spent most of their time around other very bright people in the context of an
excellent education. You should be proud of that, while recognizing how many
more people live profoundly different lives. Consider the popularity of
entertainment you’d find offensively boring, and remember that far more people
enjoy that, than Beowulf.

In short, what you’re saying isn’t wrong or unreasonable, but I think it’s
fair to say that it reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of what “average”
looks like.

~~~
boomboomsubban
Popular entertainment isn't a new phenomenon, there are plenty of books on
Project Gutenberg that anyone could find enjoyable without needing some deep
understanding of literature.

And remember what's being discussed here. You can't blame "brainjunk" on
people unwilling to pay for content, as they are also ignoring the free
content on Project Gutenberg.

~~~
watwut
Popular entertainment of 19 century is often not fun for someone living in 21
century. The reasons why it was fun to people went away with changing society.

------
ameister14
I've been reading the NY Times, Washington Post, Wall St. Journal, BBC and
others for a long time now; most of what I see published isn't improving my
mind, awareness, or store of useful knowledge. Some of it is flat out wrong.

As I became more and more educated on certain topics I noticed this more and
more - articles about a field I know a lot about often get the details wrong,
and draw the wrong conclusions because of it. I'm reasonably sure this isn't
unique to my fields of expertise.

That has nothing to do with paid/free, but if someone is going to say I should
pay them to provide me with knowledge, I'd like to be sure they actually
possess said knowledge, consistently.

As it is, different papers are good for different things and almost completely
untrustworthy for others. By virtue of a subscription, I subsidize both.

~~~
thundergolfer
What you're saying appears quite related to the Murray Gell-Man effect, which
if cashed out in reality calls into question the value of reading the news as
a way to become informed.

[https://seekerblog.com/2006/01/31/the-murray-gell-mann-
amnes...](https://seekerblog.com/2006/01/31/the-murray-gell-mann-amnesia-
effect/)

------
jarjoura
This is a terrible article. It leads with social commentary about supposed
healthy amounts of content, and then goes on to describe the shake-up at LA
Times because the editor got pulled into the #metoo fiasco.

Harvey Weinstein arguably produced some of the best content in Hollywood
during his tenure, and so the two shouldn't be coupled. Yea, fire the dude and
move on, but don't make this about cheap content, and don't make this also
about the press failing to generate revenue. All very different things and
misses the nuance of what is going on.

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GuiA
_”Enjoy content. Not too much. Mostly paid_

 _[...] if you actually want to learn, to improve your mind, to improve your
awareness and understanding of the world, you have to shell out.”_

The “paid” part seems awfully arbitrary. I went to a great exhibit the other
night, where I got to see wonderful photography, for free. I just read a great
biology paper published for free by the Royal Society on my way to work. And I
am now listening to a fascinating NPR podcast, also downloaded for free.

I guess my taxes paid for all of those in some way (even though I only lived
in the UK for a year, so that was a meager contribution to the Royal Society’s
coffers), but I wouldn’t say I “shelled out” for all these things.

~~~
colanderman
On a thread about a week ago another commenter also pointed out that some of
the best content on the web is in (free) sites maintained by hobbyists, on
some specialized topic or other, and that this content is more often than not
difficult to find because it doesn't SEO well.

(Which should be a strong indicator that Google's SEO algorithm is wildly
broken from a user's point of view. But at this point, Google, the de-facto
search _and_ web advertisement monopoly, has no incentive to prioritize
quality content, and every incentive to prioritize content that brings them ad
revenue. Which garbage content, presented poorly, is great at doing.)

Some days I long for DMOZ…

------
walterbell
_> The bulk of my friends don’t pay for subscriptions. The bulk of the
internet doesn’t pay for subscriptions. People will gladly spend hours a day
reading brainjunk, to avoid even the slightest expense that might improve the
quality of what they are reading._

There are non-subscription models, e.g. people pay for ebooks.

There are niche subscriptions, e.g. finance, health, which cost much more than
Netflix.

Some websites have occasional article gems, but there's no way to pay for a
high quality, non-DRM, indexable, offline readable, surveillance-free PDF/A
version.

~~~
eitland
Agree.

> There are non-subscription models, e.g. people pay for ebooks.

Another nice example is Blendle.

While there exist good reasons to pay for quality journalism there's no reason
why I should pay a monthly subscription to every news outlet I ever want to
read anything from.

------
montrose
It's not simply miserliness that makes people reluctant to pay for articles
online. It's also because subscribing is so much work. If you could pay 50
cents for an article with a single button click, a lot of people would do it.
But filling out a subscription form and getting out your credit card and
typing in a 16 digit number off it just to read a single article (which is all
one wants at the point one is being asked to subscribe) seems like way too
much work.

~~~
tcmb
And what is more, am I supposed to subscribe to all sites where I occasionally
find valuable content?

One of the good things about internet journalism is that I can read different
publications very easily, every day. Some of them I'd actually like to pay,
but not by way of a subscription, because paying for five or ten subscriptions
at ~$30 per month each is just too much.

With paper newspapers, I can at least buy a single issue. With online
articles, it would be feasible to pay per article, heck, even per half
articles or whatever. But for some reason all the publishers come up with is
obnoxious paywalls, and the option to subscribe or get lost. I honestly don't
understand why micropayments haven't become a thing for online journalism.

~~~
fian
Is there potential for a news article broker to sit between the readers and
the major news sites? For example you credit an account on a news broker then
when younwant to read an article the article access fee is deducted from your
account. That avoids readers needed to subscribe to many newspapers or
magazines and would provide a more friction free way to access specific
articles.

~~~
tcmb
Yes, something like that would work. I guess the biggest problem is to get the
major publishers as well as the readers to work with this broker.

Flattr had a similar problem, you could pay-per-article via their button, but
as I understand the adoption just wasn't sufficient, by both publishers and
readers.

Maybe if publishers could add a micropayment button that used
ApplePay/GooglePay/AmazonPay/PayPal, so that readers wouldn't have to sign up
for an additional service and could just use their credit card in a one-click
transaction.

------
InclinedPlane
This is silly. There is a ton of high quality free content on the internet.
What matters is taking the time and putting in the effort to ensure that
you're consuming higher quality content. Even wikipedia is worthwhile as a
basic introductory or survey level overview for lots of different subjects
(it's hard to know what to dig into and study in depth in some area without
having a general understanding first).

And there is absolutely a ton of excellent free material on youtube, of all
places. Tons and tons of DIY and how-to videos. Woodworking, machining,
electronics, knitting, sewing, cooking, the internet is a treasure trove of
data. And some of the best educational content on linear algebra and calculus
in the Universe at any price is on youtube for free (from 3blue1brown).

Overall this critique strikes me as generationalist and classist.

------
hmhrex
Not sure if it was intentional, but Crichton here uses the same Pollan
metaphor that Johnson makes in his book, The Information Diet. In fact the
tagline is right on his site:
[http://informationdiet.com/](http://informationdiet.com/)

I just got finished reading the Information Diet a couple weeks ago and was
pretty disappointed in the book overall. Same with this article. Both seem to
have a problem that I agree with: we should be more intentional about the
information we consume. However, the "solution" in both isn't fully realized
or it's tainted with an agenda of some sort.

I'm really ready for a good book on this topic as I raise my kids in the junk
knowledge/misinformation age.

Anybody have any recommendations?

~~~
stinkytaco
Are you looking for a solution, or more information? _The information: a
theory, a flood_ by James Gleick is good. I read it because I'm in that line
of work, but I think it's a good summary of _why_ content is produced and what
the challenges are. You could also do something like _The shallows_ by
Nicholas Carr, which is more of polemic than anything else, though I did enjoy
it.

Perhaps _You are not a gadget_ by Jaron Lanier or _Hamlet's Blackberry_ by
William Powers, but neither of those are books I could finish.

Finally, I read _Deep work_ not long ago and thought it was pretty good.

~~~
hmhrex
Definitely looking for a solution.

I actually loved Lanier's "You Are Not A Gadget", it was the first deep dive
of technology philosophy that I've ever read, and was definitely worth
finishing.

I'll definitely check out some of these other ones you mention. Thanks for the
recommendations!

------
NegativeLatency
TechCrunch has some good articles, and does good reporting sometimes, but
there's some irony in this article coming from them.

~~~
meow1032
I think they acknowledged this in the last couple sentences. The article is
talking less about what is good or bad reporting, and more about what is a
sustainable financial model for good reporting.

------
njacobs5074
Echoing the sentiment that some of the best content is free is exactly why the
only news app I have on my phone is for reading Hacker News.

I value the level of comments here just as much and sometimes more than the
articles people share

------
Spearchucker
I'm as ok with the rot-inducing content as I am with junk food. I don't go
near junk food and so stay slim with minimal effort (I'm just past middle
age). I find muscle dysmorphia repugnant and so haven't gone too far in that
direction either.

And so it is with content. I read quality books. James Clavell, Robert Ruark
or Frederick Forsyth for example, over J. K. Rowling or E.L James, for
instance. I source my news with care, and if a story interests me I look for
counter positions or arguments.

We all have this choice.

One path makes you look stupid, and, in comparison, the other makes you look
interesting, learned and intelligent. Amongst other benefits.

Like I said this is a choice we all make. Regardless of income (junk food is
expensive, and libraries are free).

------
ungzd
TLDR: mainstream news media says to read more mainstream news media and pay
for it.

------
0xfeba
Well, this is what BAT is supposed to help fix.

