Stuff’s new Laptop Gated Community News Wall will damage NZs deteriorating media landscape.
They have started posting this on laptop connections to their website…
…they aren’t doping it on the mobile phone because they know you won’t bother staying, it’s only popping up on laptops.
My thoughts at erecting this Laptop Gated Community News Wall is that it will be a negative.
A lot of people don’t like Stuff for its wokeness and asking people who don’t necessarily trust you for even their email address is an intimacy too far.
I suspect there will be less people reading their news as many will refuse to give Stuff even an email address.
Meanwhile, Scoop continues to limp along with their site meltdown now stretching into a month.
TDB noted they were having problems after the Blue Wall of Death and the system has increasingly gotten worse to the point they have had to erect a beta version that is a hot mess.
My understanding is that the system they built Scoop on was very old and never updated. The problem they seem to be having looks like it is enormous and I wouldn’t be surprised if they start a major new funding campaign to fund their upgrade for the future of journalism blah blah blah.
I hope The Spinoff and Action Station get involved.
I stopped liking Scoop after they printed columns calling on Chris Trotter and myself to be taught a Mervyn Thompson lesson for crimes against woke feminism.
Thought that was a tad dirty, so I welcome their demise.
Problem is so many NGOs and Unions and Political Parties post press releases on Scoop and they all say how frustrating it is to lose a platform like that.
TDB reminds them that we have a Press Release section and they can contact us here.
Losing Gordon Campbell will be a genuine blow however. He’s the best Blogger that no one reads.
Maybe Stuff can do a real service  to journalism and save him from a sinking Scoop by offering him a weekly political column, because Gordon is one of the best political columnists in NZ and that would make me give them my email address to read him behind their Gated Community News Wall.
The Daily Blog will never be behind a paywall because we fundamentally disagree with the Democracy Project’s future of a paywall political media landscape that creates two information classes of citizens.
Increasingly having independent opinion in a mainstream media environment which mostly echo one another has become more important than ever, so if you value having an independent voice – please donate here.
Not to worry – the Spin-off, RNZ, and NZ On Air will keep giving Progressive voices a safe space to play on.
I’m getting it on my mobile. But that’s from o’seas.
No big deal. The headlines and a couple of sentences is quite enough.
They shouldn’t be doing it for stuff taken from RNZ though
Stuff login gate also on my iPad. And there is so little worth reading on Stuff: most has migrated to the Post-Press-Waikato mastheads.
Your blog is a beacon of light in the often murky waters of online content. Your thoughtful analysis and insightful commentary never fail to leave a lasting impression. Keep up the amazing work!
Haven’t encountered this problem.
Using a decent browser like Brave, Firefox, or Mullvad Browser, plus ublock Origin tends to take care of eliminating most ads. Archive.today lets you bypass most paywalls.
If stuff are offering a free access where do they get a return on their content? Who funds it then? If they could come to an agreement with google, which I hope is possible, then they would need to get some payment.
Different newspaper media are trying different approaches. Some just a small short term cost. But setting up payment over the internet is time-consuming and opens up entrance to scammers and for the odd article is not worth the bother. Some give a limited number of views which enables you to check their content. Some have monetary steps that are too high for a random viewer. Some offer too much and if plan to pass on to favoured third-party businesses could result in another group of businesses getting your details. In time it could be exponential – help.