
“farewell outline. we have all been laid off.” - petercooper
https://twitter.com/leahfinnegan/status/1246070831807188993
======
ilamont
Outline isn't the only online pub laying off all or most employees. I know
someone in a specialty tech pub (robotics) who lost his job two weeks ago, as
soon as the news turned bad in the U.S.

Marketing and events, two mainstays for specialty news, have evaporated, and
many online pubs don't have enough subscribers.

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rchaud
The Outline might have been the only "digital media" site to actually have
interesting looking ads. I can't find an example right now, but the ads were
full-page and swipe-based, so you could read it as a story.

My adblocker catches the usual suspects, but I'm guessing these were not
served from a third-party domain. I'm perfectly happy with ads that look like
some effort went into them, and don't carry the numerous trackers that we now
accept as part and parcel of real-time bidding networks.

They never had the Taboola/Outbrain chumbox as so many "reputable"
publications do. They never had hideous Adsense ads breaking up the page.

It's too bad the site didn't have a clear identity; the topics were all over
the place, and it didn't have a unique tone of voice.

Plus, I'm guessing media buyers were not pleased about having to actually
create interesting looking ads that were closer to interactive sponsored
content than a two-line Adsense ad they could A/B test to their heart's
desire.

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Tomte
I'm so happy we have Kurzarbeit[1] in Germany.

Our CEO told us today that they're planning for it. I don't know yet, whether
I will be on it, but I assume that I will.

And it's infinitely better than losing my job.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short-
time_working](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short-time_working)

~~~
CaveTech
This exists elsewhere as a temporary or seasonal layoff/furlough. Many
companies are going to be shedding employees through "covid related" layoffs
that are not in fact covid related. Perfect time for companies to restructure
without bad press.

~~~
mm89
Kurzarbeit is described on Google as "Short-time working or short time is a
situation or system in which civilian employees agree to or are forced to
accept a reduction in working time and pay.".

That's different than a layoff. I'd happily accept a reduction in pay and work
hours over a 100% pay cut and temporary layoff, if that's what it took to keep
my company alive during a temporary economic downturn.

~~~
ttul
Yes. Kurzarbeit means the company keeps people on its payroll but doesn't give
them full hours. The government tops their pay back up to 100% but the company
is saved from carrying the full load. The company keeps its employees and all
the valuable training they received, allowing it to get back to full speed
once the downturn is over.

A free market is very inept at solving this problem because no single company
is going to make the long term investment required to foresee future
recessions and implement a war chest sufficient to offer Kurzarbeit. But the
state can think ahead and generate a public good from this kind of program.

~~~
Tomte
> The government tops their pay back up to 100%

Not quite, I think the government makes up for 60% or so of the income
difference, but I'll have to look it up later myself.

~~~
ttul
Thank you for the correction.

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Scoundreller
Ohhh, theoutline.com

I was wondering just how many employees outline.com even had and if they could
just run as is with a couple people.

------
_eht
Being close to the publishing world, this does not surprise me. eCPM has
halved, if not better depending on demographics. We will likely see this
happening to places that started this pandemic out overextended.

~~~
reaperducer
Since you are close to this space, do you have any sense of whether the number
of ad views is increasing because more people are home?

~~~
x0x0
ad views aren't important. Look at dollars in. Over time, net dollars in must
exceed net dollars paid to publishers.

I have a cxx role at a startup. We slashed our ad budget for the next 45-60
days until we figure out how deep our economic collapse is going to be; I
suspect we're far from the only company.

The other thing about ecpms is most advertisers have a daily frequency cap for
cookies. More browsing plus more ad slots does not necessarily equal that much
more filled ad slots.

We're going to see a lot more ad-supported content companies fail as we
destroy the ability to do cross-site targeting. (I'm not saying increasing
privacy is bad; merely that this is an entirely-foreseeable outcome). Some
sites will transition to paywalls; others will die.

Premier sites -- NYT, wapo, gawker family, etc -- will be able to do direct
deals with advertisers. That takes both a dedicated salesforce, a draw, and
frequent users. Mid-market sites like this will almost certainly not be able
to do so.

See also Josh at Talking Points Memo's writing about transitioning to a mostly
subscriber-supported model.

~~~
Scoundreller
> ad views aren't importanT

You sure? If it’s a supply and demand market, in increase in eyeballs can
crash CPMs as the competition to get your ad to display craters.

Kinda like how a small decrease in traffic (say 10%) can turn a highway from
gridlock to free flowing.

~~~
x0x0
I meant follow dollars in to understand dollars out. There will be some
reallocation between publishers, but follow dollars in and you'll see what
will most likely happen to ecpms out. The latter is a trailing measure.

iow, you will probably get more views, but dollars will probably follow the
economy.

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Qub3d
Its a shame to hear, I really enjoy the Outline's content. Is there any more
context as to who "all" is referring to? Is the entire site dead?

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azinman2
If this is a pure online pub, how/is this somehow related to covid-19? Not
many details...

~~~
eli
Network ad rates have crashed as there is a glut of impression but low demand
from advertisers.

Many online publishers will turn to paycuts and layoffs or even go out of
business in the next few weeks

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gumby
Wasn’t this what the payroll protection program was designed for? It’s a
“loan” on which the principal and interest are paid by the government to cover
payroll and rent. Instead these people are just gone.

~~~
legitster
> Top U.S. banks have threatened to give the federal government’s small-
> business rescue program a miss on concerns about taking on too much
> financial and legal risk, five people with direct knowledge of industry
> discussions told Reuters…

> Their main concern is that the Treasury Department has said it expects
> lenders to verify borrower eligibility, and take steps to prevent fraud,
> money laundering and protect customer information under the Bank Secrecy
> Act, sources said. Banks are worried they could face regulatory penalties or
> legal costs down the line if things go awry in the haste to get money out
> the door, or get blamed for not moving funds fast enough if they perform due
> diligence the way they would in ordinary times, the sources said.

[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-
stimul...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-stimulus-
banks-exc-idUSKBN21K075)

Another example of our crisis response failing us.

~~~
johnbrodie
I'm not so sure it's so black and white. Isn't this exactly the kind of
situation that these banks would use as leverage to get themselves a better
deal, especially as interest rate they can charge was a specific complaint?

> Members of the group include JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N), Bank of America
> Corp (BAC.N), Wells Fargo & Co (WFC.N) Citigroup Inc (C.N), Truist
> BankBBTVA.UL and PNC Bank PNCBNK.UL.

Yeah, not taking their word for it.

------
echelon
I was looking at this SBA loan forgiveness plan that's a part of the relief /
recovery / bailout bill. I actually think right now is an incredible time to
launch a startup, and I want to hire a few out of work software engineers to
work with me.

My plan was to incorporate, take out a loan, and pay payroll with the entirety
of it. Unfortunately it looks like the bill requires you to have been in
business before February 15th with verifiable employees on payroll.

I'm really miffed, because putting unemployed employees on payroll at a new
company isn't any worse than keeping existing employees on payroll at a
business that doesn't have customers. In fact, if a new company is more
productive and is working on solving problems that arise because of this
virus, it seems more productive to solve the new problems than to keep the
unviable businesses running.

I'll have to figure something else out...

~~~
vb6sp6
its a program to keep business afloat, not launch new ones.

~~~
fphhotchips
Yeah, but GP has a point; from a total employment standpoint, there is no
difference. In fact encouraging new business at this time could create a burst
of new, lean, innovative startups solving real problems from a time of
hardship, rather than fake problems from a time of prosperity.

~~~
gamblor956
There are existing startup incentive programs...

The point of CARES is to keep _existing_ revenue-generating businesses open,
and their employees paid.

And quite frankly, as a former techie it's kind of disgusting that people in
the tech community are complaining that their employee-free, revenue-free,
1-day-old startup doesn't qualify for a program intended to keep existing,
otherwise viable businesses (absent COVID19) running and their employees paid.
This is not the time for the tech community to launch yet another regulatory
arbitrage startup that exploits everyone else.

~~~
echelon
> employee-free

I want to hire people. I'm probably still going to do this, but dip into my
savings to do so.

