re: #54 darthstar

Speaking of Andreesen, he just published this tl;dr about the future of news. In it, there’s a lot of boilerplate b.s., and a swipe at unions. Typical glibertarian stuff. But I noted someone posted about ProPublica and his connection yesterday, so thought it might be of interest.

What’s holding the future of news back
There are some artifacts and ideas in the journalism business that arguably are counterproductive to the growth of both quality journalism and quality businesses. It’s why some organizations are finding it so hard to move forward.
An obvious one is the bloated cost structure left over from the news industry’s monopoly/oligopoly days. Nobody promised every news outfit a shiny headquarters tower, big expense accounts, and lots of secretaries!
Unions and pensions are another holdover. Both were useful once, but now impose a structural rigidity in a rapidly changing environment. They make it hard to respond to a changing financial environment and to nimbler competition. The better model for incentivizing employees is sharing equity in the company.