Independent media is jeopardized! Is open PUBLIQ protocol a solution?
Web is the space few platforms fully control!
With over 95% of online content being free, advertising being the main model for monetizing this content, and 80% of global online adspend (about $250 Bln in 2019) going just to a few 'platforms' like FB and Google (combined over 60%), Netflix, Amazon, Disney and few others making for the rest 20%, it is obvious that global independent media especially in the digital space - which now accounts over 41% of global adspend, is jeopardized.
source: eMarketer
No matter how big or small media one is, the entire space is at risk. The recent survey conducted by Reuters with major media leaders participating reveals that the single greatest risk to success for publishers is the power of platforms.
Reuters: Digital Leaders Survey 2018
These platforms essentially make-up the Web space, effectively controlling it.
What publishers need?
To understand what are the challenges the independent publishers have while facing the growth of powerful platforms, let's compare the results of a surveys conducted in 2018 and 2019.
As it may be inferred from the pie-charts below, in 2018 publishers were more concerned with growing quality traffic and re-engineering the existing audiences, while managing their infrastructures, goals that relate to their performance in the intranet of platforms. More so, in 2019 their focus has further polarized in becoming more 'compliant' with search engine requirements, addressing more pressing needs for revenue (next three main areas of importance), and getting more 'digital'. From the first glance these are all noble causes, however, both in 2018 and 2019, it showcases more pressure and more 'control' from the platform-monopolies (or perhaps a duopoly already), who are free to set own rules for distribution and performance of all players coming on-board (managing website speed, infrastructure, technical issues, using data to make helpful decisions [how well they perform in terms of earning more ads revenue from the small pool, a left-over for all to grab], growing quality traffic, bring more diversity to content, new publications, new attractions to grow the audience - the main monetization source for ads that only counts numbers. 2018 digital publishing trends that publishers care about: by ezoic.com
https://www.ezoic.com/2019-digital-publishing-trends-that-publishers-care-about/
Digital tsunami
In his presentation made at BBC Studios at the University of Westminster, UK, NYT CEO and President Mark Thompson started his talk with the concept of press 'sovereignty', defining it as "our ability to freely express ourselves in our many stories, opinions and traditions... to each other and the world".
He further suggests that "many of local and international media are under economic and audience threat from the process of digital disintegration and reinvention, and particularly from its globalizing effects, borderless character of digital distribution, mainly from the stand point of its intrinsic scale and economics."
He defines the current state of media as 'Digital tsunami' threatening all, especially those that still continue thinking and acting within conventional realms of a print business. Whereas, he suggests that "company's life depends on digital and one has to throw everything and anyone into this fight".
Global utilities or competition?
Some voice that these platforms have become a utility, being natural monopolies, suggesting that more regulation is needed to make them service their role in delivering a public good. Considering that these platforms now operate well above national borders as are in certain cases much bigger than some nation states with resources and powers they possess, it is perhaps a much more difficult goal to attain. Some of these platforms hardly pay taxes in their main markets, though being the most profitable not only in media, but overall. They effectively compete with those that come to enterprise in their 'territories'. With full powers to control, they are free to block access, set intermediation fees and stakes (Apple setting the new standard of 50x50 cut with news media utilizing its platform to reach audiences), set the rules, let alone exercising full power to buy any innovation or development that threatens their powers.
Consolidate or die!
It is obvious that some major players are trying to gain muscles to stay on float: most try to consolidate to become bigger to put a fight to platforms that essentially control the distribution, and take the lion's share in adspend. Only a few invest to really go digital, and offer services that users of digital age demand.
The problem with the strategy of consolidation is that trying to form a new centralized power to fight much bigger centralized ones, much better positioned in digital space, has little chance of winning.
Mobilization and disintermediation vs. Consolidation
'Sovereignty' is perhaps the right concept when speaking of the future media. However achieving it through consolidation only is not the best strategy. Rather, sovereignty built on total ownership of the 'citizens' of the new media state that think and act digital and employ all the powers that technology may land could be the one with a chance to win. And mobilization is the right process to invest in, with transferring the ownership in the Web to people and entities who build and add the most value in media. And while platforms have important role to play, they could and will be the providers of services and the environment, with no stake in the game, at least not a major one. Most likely we are to witness the rise of new, completely new platforms, not-for-profit at the core and with 'appreciation' as their main economic model, that already evolve to one day in the near future to replace the ones with centralized ownership and profit maximizing at their core.
The technology of trust is what we shall call upon, with true powers to deliver such solutions: manless algorithms built by the community of owners will inevitably replace the powerful global platforms owned by a few.
Internet of Owners vs. Intranet of Platforms: Please meet PUBLIQ!
As the trend in going "people-to-people" away from intermediation in the global economy indicates, in media also the future may be envisaged as an ecosystem that may be built on the basis of people to people (P2P) distributed networks, owned, governed and operated by creators of digital content, authors and publishers en large.
While many such initiatives exist, most are still working within the frames of profit centered corporate thinking, e.g. Steemit. The corporate model that is still trying to use the tech advancements to build another intranet to profit has little chance of winning the trust of global audience, now well aware of the 'promises' that such platforms have for others.
However, there is one, that has a chance of becoming , already delivering a working model of distributed web and media. PUBLIQ got on stage at the World Congress of Information Technologies (WCIT) 2019 on the 8th of October, to introduce its revolutionary PUBLIQ open protocol, with its mission to publitize the net. The PUBLIQ's speech, moderated by TechCrunch editor-at-large Mike Butcher, was a great chance to announce to the world that PUBLIQ protocol, its technology of trust, is live, and that PUBLIQ now invites all independent authors and publishers from around the world to join to build to earn their real-time share in the next generation media and the Web.
PUBLIQ introduced how its people to people public network, built on proprietary proof of utility blockchain, distributed storage, and channel nodes, PUBLIQ’s AI engine, and it's tradable native utility token, PBQ, can help mold not only the media, but the internet of the future. Anyone can now earn by becoming an author, a publisher, a blockchain or storage node, and build their own media by utilizing PUBLIQ protocol, being it a journalistic publication/blog, a Q&A site, a social media platform, or any other form of unique media one might imagine.
PUBLIQ has a vision to become the foundation of trust on which the people could mobilize to build the truly independent Web, the Internet of Owners. Perhaps only the true Internet of Owners has a real chance to break the monopoly of a few, the power of the intranet of platforms, and give people back their Space to prosper.