I agree. Only on the web are publishers so willing to dilute and pervert their product to such a degree. Perhaps it is in part because many of the folk that run these companies cannot see the internet as a real place. However, it's more real. This medium is living. The NYT had the sense to walk back from the precipice. I agree with your math, and the click route devours quality. Over time, we have talked about a paywall, invites, and a number of other up front filters. Obviously, I still believe it can be done without them. I hope it can, and not just because I don't want Hubski to fail. I want that place to exist.I think that, in this age of Cracked, HuffPo, QZ, Upworthy and all the rest of the clickbait bullshit, we'll start to see communities that do not let you register by default. That do not let you wander through and post comments like an angry toddler. That are curated for the defense of their existing userbase because they recognize that their existing userbase matters.
You should read Ryan Holiday's book. He makes a compelling argument that the Internet as we see it now is pretty much where journalism was back in the days of broadsheets and corner cryers, where you needed to grab the attention of random passers-by every.single.DAY because if you didn't sell everything you printed, you lost money. He further argues that journalism, as we understand it, didn't really exist until the New York Times started selling subscriptions so that they could report on the news, rather than make it up in hopes of selling papers. The fact that the same company uses the same algorithm to generate eHow article topics and Cracked article topics says a lot about the way the Internet is organizing itself somatically. And frankly, the fact that we did this a hundred years ago and the edifice came crumbling down within a decade says even more.
Ok, I'll add it to the list. I have actually slated The End of Food as my next read. b_b got the recommendation from you, and he says he can't put it down. I'm convinced that the next phase of media will involve the readership in an intrinsic way. However, it will take time before publishers can see that the costs of solving our problems and risking open-ended synthesis are less than what can be gained. Readers will begin to share some of the authority that the publishers cede.