Model Comparison

Comparing a Proposed Public Media Channel to Commercial Media Channels

Commercial Media Channels are private firms like; Newspapers, Radio Stations, T.V. Networks, Google, Facebook, and YouTube. The Proposed Public Media Channel would be a non-governmental organization like public libraries, most hospitals or Wikipedia. It will also be referred to here as a Digital Public Library. The important difference between these types of media channels is the way their services are financed. This is a comparison of their funding models.

For each type of funding Model;
• who pays and how?
• who benefits?
• What are the pros and cons?

Commercial media firms mainly fund their services with advertising. Some also fund using pay-wall/subscription or a combination of advertising and pay-wall/subscription. Leaving Pay-wall/subscription funding until later, here is a comparison of the media channels that are funded with advertising compared to a Digital Public Library that would be publicly funded.

Who pays for the systems? In both cases citizens pay.

_____________________________________

How do citizens pay when they use the commercial advertising system of funding media services?

Citizens pay a hidden cost that is built into the price of almost all goods and services.

Firms and individuals, with products, services, and ideology to promote, pay Commercial Media Channels to present their advertisements to an audience. Content that the audience wants is presented as bait to bring the audiences’ attention to advertisements.

The people who are experiencing the content (the audience) pay for two things. They pay for the production of the content and they pay a profit to the owners of the Commercial Media Channels.

Not everyone, but enough of the audience falls prey to advertising pitches. Consequently they purchase enough at inflated prices to provide all the funds, both for production and profits. The profit is two to three times more than what is payed for content-production.

Advertising creates Artificial Demand. It makes people want things they would naturally not be wanting.  Artificial Demand inflates prices. Consumers buy goods and services at inflated prices.

That is the reality. Advertising raises our cost of living. The myth is that advertising gives us free media

How would citizens pay using the Digital Public Library funding system?

Citizens pay a visible highly progressive general tax that is used to fund a National Digital Public Library. A progressive tax is a tax that imposes a lower tax rate on low-income earners compared to those with a higher income, making it based on the taxpayer’s ability to pay. That means it takes a larger percentage from high-income earners than it does from low-income individuals.

The National Digital Public Library on agreement with media-content-copyright-holders makes their content available for use by the public. If the content is advertising-free, The Library pays the copyright holders fees for service based on the level of use of their content by the public.

To make the payment system a fair and democratic way to fund media-content-production, it would include these four things:

— automatic payment from the digital public library to the copyright holder based on use

— manual clawback of the payment to the library if the user deems the content to be inappropriate or unworthy (This is to discourage those who might like to profit from deception.)

— inverse popularity pay scale (where the first few thousand instances of use would pay out at a high rate and then the rate would taper off) This would sustain production of local news and other content that serves smaller niche audiences.

— copyright expiry based on reaching a high cap on funding instead of being based on time (This is to limit viral content from consuming the majority of the available funds.)
________________________________________

Who Benefits when they use the commercial advertising system of funding media services?
• Wealthy people who own firms that advertise
• Wealthy people who own advertising funded Commercial Media Channels
• Workers employed by the advertising industry
• Firms and individuals that produce media content

Who would benefit using the Digital Public Library funding system?
• People who experience media content
• Firms and individuals that produce media content

_______________________________________

Pros and Cons

Pros of using the commercial advertising system of funding media services
• Creates employment for people who work in the advertising industry
• Provides funding for media-content-production

Pros of using the Digital Public Library funding system
• Provides funding for media-content-production
• eliminates the opportunity that now exists to buy access to an audience
• eliminates the waste of millions of man hours due to advertising
• replaces a system where money can buy you a voice in the public sphere with a system where we all have an equal opportunity to express ourselves publicly
• allows market forces to operate based on real demand not the artificial demand created by advertising. Business success will depend on delivering quality without hype
• eliminates the censorship problem we now have, in that media owners, writers and editors self censor so as not to offend the advertisers who fund their work
• provides access to all information, news and entertainment  on request for everyone without charge, with no advertising, no paywalls and no piracy
• eliminates the cost of advertising that is built into the price of goods and services, generating a consumer savings to offset the cost of a new tax.
• lowers the cost of living — Although a Digital Public Library would require an increase in taxes, it should also bring about a more than equivalent reduction in consumer prices.

Cons of using the commercial advertising system of funding media services
• not democratic because it creates a huge opportunity for the rich to buy a dominating voice in the public conversations
• increases consumer prices
• wastes people’s time
• interferes with the market
• drowns out citizens’ free expression
• censors content
• widens the income gap
• wrong and detrimental to society

Cons of using the Digital Public Library funding system
• would result in a tax increase
• would result in job losses in the advertising industry
• would require a one time compensation and retraining program for workers in the advertising industry

______________________

The paywall/conscription funding model for media is very strait forward. It does though exclude poor people from accessing media content. This is somewhat disgusting considering that as a society we could easily afford to pay for everyone to access any digital media they might choose to access.

Also, as a society, with a Digital Public Library, we could fairly compensate the private firms and workers who produce digital media content.