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Democracy and the open internet die in daylight

2025-10-2213:03156118heatherburns.tech

Obviously there have been many editorial changes at the formerly venerable Washington Post, a tawdry saga which I don’t intend to recap here. What I do want to share is this, which I spotted yesterday…

Obviously there have been many editorial changes at the formerly venerable Washington Post, a tawdry saga which I don’t intend to recap here.

What I do want to share is this, which I spotted yesterday during research.

In other words – you get free access to news if you download PerplexityAI’s proprietary browser, which is built entirely around agentic AI.

*grinds teeth into powder*

Leaving aside the idea of access to any form of content being conditional on the use of a proprietary browser, which is a particularly horrid 1990s throwback, I’m going to call this day 0 of an experiment in shifting the funding model of journalism from adtech to agentic AI.

Journalism (or what’s left of it now) is in the state it’s in because of the adtech funding model. I don’t know what the solution is.

But it sure as fuck isn’t trading one privacy-obliterating technology for another, packaged as opportunity.


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Comments

  • By lunias 2025-10-2214:403 reply

    I understand the frustration, but this is everywhere. I went to McDonald's and saw that they were running their Monopoly game again. I peeled the sticker off of my fries nostalgically, but in order to even see what I may have won I need to download the app and manually enter the code. Why even print a physical Monopoly piece sticker? I'm definitely not installing your app. We used to just walk up to the counter and redeem the reward. This change you've made, it's not for me, is it?

    The solution is the same as it has always been, stop spending time and money on things that are frustrating. If enough people do it in aggregate, then things will change; but I'll be damned if people aren't slow to catch on.

    • By imglorp 2025-10-2214:515 reply

      It's back to this modern business problem: shareholders demand multiple revenue streams now. You can't just sell food, now you also have to surveil your customers and sell their data, show them ads, and get them into a subscription.

      • By invalidOrTaken 2025-10-2217:291 reply

        I don't think shareholders really demand anything, most of the time. So much of the market is just passive 401k buckets.

        This feels like a pathology of board/C-suite culture, something that they feel like they "have to" do, rather than actual angry letters from Joe Shareholder in Des Moines demanding more user data farming.

        • By pona-a 2025-10-2217:47

          At least in the case of United, we did see shareholders write angry letters when they temporarily became slightly less aggressive denying customers coverage. If that's the level of care for matters of life and death, why wouldn't it generalize to surveillance?

      • By krapp 2025-10-232:36

        To be fair, I think McDonald's makes more money on real estate (renting franchise locations) than they do selling food, and the income from data mining customers would probably be a pittance in comparison to both.

        Not that I'd put it past them, but I assume the entire point of the Monopoly campaign is advertising, playing on the nostalgia for the original, and that the app is just there because that's what you do now, you just have an app.

      • By SirFatty 2025-10-2214:532 reply

        "show them ads"

        Gas station at 6a, nothing like blaring ads across 20 pumps. What a time to be alive!

        • By sph 2025-10-235:431 reply

          Can you explain this one for the rest of the world? You guys have ads at petrol stations?

          • By CodeMage 2025-10-2315:03

            Yes. Most gas stations in the US are self-serve, with screens and buttons next to them. Some are even switching to touch screens. And now some of those screens display ads while you're fueling your car. Hell, some even have sound and it's set at a rather obnoxious volume.

        • By scruple 2025-10-2215:062 reply

          Second button from the top on the right shuts most of those things up in my experience. If not hit every button, usually one of them will work.

          • By SirFatty 2025-10-2215:40

            Nice! I'll give it a go next time. Thanks for that.

            edit: speedway has gone touchscreen, so I wonder if there are ghost buttons then?

          • By NietzscheanNull 2025-10-2218:23

            Unfortunately, my local stations are deep enough into the Enshittification Cycle™ that the formerly-functional pump mute buttons have all been disabled. That seems to be the trend among several of the newer gas stations I've visited lately.

            That's the line which, when crossed, I immediately boycott and use another gas station indefinitely, but I get the feeling that it's only a matter of time before they all follow suit.

            But surely, “all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds” that our late-stage capitalism has so benevolently bequeathed us.

      • By emchammer 2025-10-2214:55

        And sell them a credit card, but if you have any questions about that credit card, call the issuing bank because it’s not their problem.

      • By swed420 2025-10-2216:40

        Would it work if we created a crowdsourced vision for each category of product/service, so that any given business would be incentivized to meet these requirements to be able to advertise a product or store is Anti-Enshitified Compliant™?

        No more "savey-save fcky-fck" cards/clubs as Bill Burr used to joke. No more apps required just to get a fair price. Get the easily transferable PFAS/PFOA contaminants off of my receipts and food wrappers. The sky is the limit for what we could demand.

        Companies/shareholders could choose to comply or not.

    • By mbirth 2025-10-2217:001 reply

      > We used to just walk up to the counter and redeem the reward.

      That still works. Instant prizes will have a tiny QR code on them and you can still take them to the counter and let the person behind scan it. At least here in the UK.

      • By lunias 2025-10-2217:13

        I might try; assuming there is anyone at the counter to actually scan a QR code. I did some very basic research (US) and while you can still get pieces for free, it seemed to me that you need the app in order to do anything with them. Which seemed potentially illegal, but I guess since the app is free they can still say "no purchase necessary." I mean, a phone to run the app on isn't free...

    • By ModernMech 2025-10-2214:521 reply

      Well, it's been 10 years since they ran the game because last time they did it there was a massive fraud ring. This time you have to register to play the game, and you register your codes with the app. The app reports how many prizes have been claimed, and which ones, so it's good for players too because last time they got mad thinking they were playing for $1M when it was never going to happen. I agree there are instances where an app isn't warranted, but I think for this game it's app or no game at all. We don't live in 2015 anymore.

      • By lunias 2025-10-2217:031 reply

        I remember the fraud, it was insider theft and distribution of game pieces. I'm sure the new system doesn't make them immune to fraud. It now just takes a different skill set. I don't buy the "We don't live in 2015 anymore." take, do you remember the airport before 9/11? Is it okay to say, "Ah, but we don't live in 2011 anymore." There is a very clear trend of companies gaslighting everyone into thinking something is better when it's clearly only better for the company proposing it. I agree that it's cool to be able to see the remaining prize pool; it'd be really cool if I could see that on the menu, on the kiosk, on a dedicated Monopoly display in the store, etc. McDonald's can use their devices for their promotions, not mine.

        • By ModernMech 2025-10-2217:20

          It doesn’t make them immune from fraud but it probably makes them not liable now that there’s a TOC you have to agree to before you play.

  • By pm90 2025-10-2214:026 reply

    Washington post has been becoming increasingly irrelevant. They went from 500-800k paid subscribers to less than 100k after Bezos started interfering editorially. Some of the most respected journalists left the paper. So I wouldn’t take WaPo as an indicator of anything; its a Bozos Vanity Project and nothing else.

    • By throw0101c 2025-10-2214:272 reply

      > So I wouldn’t take WaPo as an indicator of anything; its a Bozos Vanity Project and nothing else.

      Meanwhile Laurene Powell (Steve Jobs' widow) owns The Atlantic, and their subscriptions are up and they are now profitable:

      * https://wan-ifra.org/2025/05/how-the-atlantic-keeps-subscrib...

      * https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/11/media/the-atlantic-magazine-p...

      * https://www.pugpig.com/2025/03/14/the-content-and-revenue-le...

      One can have a well-run 'vanity project' or a badly-run one.

      • By dotancohen 2025-10-2214:541 reply

        Always happy for a new news source, I just took a look at the Atlantic. It doesn't seem to have any news, just articles about news. Interesting concept.

      • By tialaramex 2025-10-2214:561 reply

        Does Powell make editorial decisions at The Atlantic ?

        The problem I think is implied to be the choice to meddle with editorial not per se the choice for wealthy individuals to own such a publication.

        I'd be interested with people who buy sports teams and interfere in running the team - does that go similarly poorly? Does it turn out that billionaires aren't great at choosing the team composition and strategy for NFL games ? Surprised Pikachu Face 'cos sure seems like Bezos doesn't understand how to write a great newspaper...

        • By ModernMech 2025-10-2215:171 reply

          > Bezos doesn't understand how to write a great newspaper...

          He's not trying to write a great newspaper, he's trying to write a newspaper that curries favor or at least doesn't raise the ire of the current administration.

          • By throw0101c 2025-10-2216:12

            > He's not trying to write a great newspaper, he's trying to write a newspaper that curries favor or at least doesn't raise the ire of the current administration.

            And I think is a problem with news organizations that are part of larger conglomerates: it may be possible to use leverage on other parts of the business to affect how the news operations are done.

            If (say) Bill Gates owned WaPo, he doesn't necessarily care much about how Microsoft is doing anymore. Whereas Bezos probably does still care about Amazon, as well as his space stuff.

    • By CGMthrowaway 2025-10-2214:241 reply

      What do you mean? A source says wapo has 130K print and 2.5M online subs.[1] Compare NYT with 660K print and 9.7M online[2] which I imagine have fallen off proportionally in line with wapo.[3]

      [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Post

      [2]https://www.niemanlab.org/2024/02/the-new-york-times-made-mo...

      [3]https://fourweekmba.com/the-new-york-times-print-subscribers...

      • By Noumenon72 2025-10-2214:25

        Also, that Post figure is from 2023, so subscriptions were that low even before the editorial interference.

    • By genghisjahn 2025-10-2214:28

      The wapo still has over a million paid subscribers.

      “The publication has now shed 250,000 subscribers, or 10% of the 2.5 million customers it had before the decision was made public on Friday, according to the NPR reporter David Folkenflik”

      https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/oct/29/washington-pos...

    • By intended 2025-10-2214:302 reply

      This is the kind of reassurance that misses the message.

      News cannot survive, because it has no real revenue stream.

      the NYT figured out video games as a solution.

      • By wisemang 2025-10-2214:421 reply

        Not sure I’d call them _video_ games per se but anecdotally (me) it does work.

        That said NYT crossword has existed for much longer, puzzle games are a longstanding feature of many newspapers.

        • By intended 2025-10-2214:551 reply

          Argh… yes … I was being lazy, and definitely didnt want to spend the calories figuring out or coining the right classification for what the NYT is doing.

          Yes, the crossword has existed for longer, but it was never the core source of funding.

          It’s interesting, and I doubt it can scale - every newspaper has its own puzzle section?

          • By wisemang 2025-10-2318:32

            Right I guess in the old model they were often syndicated. But as a kid I remember seeing things like the jumble, word search, cryptic something or other etc. in my local small-ish city newspaper

      • By bogzz 2025-10-2214:35

        ...I actually paid for their games app yesterday. I do really like them though.

    • By terminalshort 2025-10-2214:52

      The Washington Post died when they decided their job was to be activists instead of neutral observers. Jeff Bezos is just another nail in the coffin.

    • By quantummagic 2025-10-2214:181 reply

      Your post is worthy of a rap song by Ad Homeminem.

      • By cluckindan 2025-10-2214:232 reply

        ”Bozos Vanity” by Ad Homeminem:

            Yeah, they preach about truth, but the ink ran dry,  
    Bought the headlines, thought clout could buy the sky.  
    Bezos in the lobby, pullin’ strings, that’s the show,  
    Turned the Post into a post nobody wants to know.  

    Five hundred K deep, now it’s tumbleweed clicks,  
    Writers jump ship while the suits play tricks.  
    Never trust the press when it’s built on a throne,  
    Every page now reads like a PR zone.  

    Ad Homeminem, I don’t bow, I expose,  
    I talk numbers, they talk prose.  
    Media’s a mirror, cracked and vain,  
    You can’t buy truth with billionaire pain.
        Generated using Perplexity for maximum irony.

        • By skeledrew 2025-10-2214:38

          I can actually feel this. Very slick rhymes.

        • By skeeter2020 2025-10-2214:28

          Is posting the prompt today's equivalent of liner notes?

  • By Telemakhos 2025-10-2213:581 reply

    I don't think I agree with equating the scribblings of the Washington Post with "democracy" as a whole. I feel like those are two different things.

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