The internet bubble bust in 2000 had nothing to do with free content on the internet or advertising… It was more related to speculation on the market and overpaying for companies, because the people making investments did not understand the business model and were basing their estimates on the “old, non-internet” businesses models.
MacArthur seems very dissatisfied with the new reality that Internet presents, especially the fact that a lot of news and other written content is available for free and subsidized by advertisement. He seems too steeped in the “old” ways and completely unwilling to change… Darwin’s “survival of the fittest” theory suggests that everyone has to either adapt or become extinct. Well, i believe the same is true in regards to publication online, albeit not all of them. Publications have to either adapt or wither away. As such, most publications have “removed” barriers to their content by making it free. MacArthur is unhappy with the fact that work of writers, their written reports, are being distributed for free based on the idea of “free content, paid by advertising.” Certain aspects of this idea are vague and truly are make believe and kind of unrealistic, but not everything.
The argument that he makes regarding the lack of spreading of knowledge is completely false. He basically over generalizes the idea of content distribution as he sees it from his point of view and related directly to the industry he works in. News reporting and journalism aside…the internet has greatly improved the lives of most people by creating new industries, new jobs, raising the bar for qualifications and skills people need to have in order to succeed.
I don’t really care about his opinions on the internet…my opinions are completely different from his and i don’t want to get into the long-winded rant about why, because i already mentioned it briefly above… His opinions in regard to Journalism are eye-opening, i did not know that writers were being compensated so poorly… As such, compensation of writers is not the responsibility of readers…the company employing and distributing their content is responsible for fair compensation.