I bought “What Would Google Do? years ago, and never read it. Recently though I have been reading it and it got me to think about why I use the UK and US rather than Switzerland. The answer is simple. Almost all Swiss newspapers are hidden behind paywalls. When you’re greeted by a paywall after clicking you stop clicking.
I would push further. When I click and I am thanked with a paywall I tell Google News not to give headlines from that newspaper. The result is that news sources that are not free to read, are no longer visible.
There was a time when I would go to the Guardian, Le Monde, TSR, BBC news, the Independent and many other news sites daily, and read the headlines, and some articles.
With the arrival of paywalls I stopped visiting all sites that paywalled their content because if you read three newspapers and each one is 360 CHF per year, or more it becomes too expensive. Having said this I used to pay for Le Temps, but because the price is so high I stopped. 400 CHF per year for a newspaper you don’t read that often is very expensive. The NYTimes in contrast is about 90 CHF per year, and the Guardian is “Whatever you can pay”.
Out of curiousity whilst typing this blog post I clicked on two hyperlinks and both of them are behind paywalls. This means that following Swiss news via Google News is a waste of time because you just see headlines.
With the UK and US versions of Google News you can read the headlines. Often when you click through you get content and you can read it. In this environment you are more likely to read from a dozen sources, rather than just one.
In my opinion Google News gives us a central point from which to browse the day’s news before clicking on headline groups, or articles. We then read the article, and then return to Google. Google is driving traffic to these sites, and when people aren’t instantly blocked from reading, as they are on French and Swiss sites, they then stick around, load ads and generate a little income from our seeing a headline and clicking through.
Rather than seeing Google News as a challenger I see it as an opportunity. With Google News it becomes convenient to browse through news articles, identify bias and then decide on how newsworthy, or accurate a news story is. By seeing several sources and headlines we can make an informed decision of what to trust, especially in the age of opinion as fact.
And finally, for me Google News is a useful aggregator from which to visit sites and read news stories, at my own speed. I often find that I keep up to date with the news quite effectively, in this manner.
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