Big Tech is your enemy

Takeaways:

• Google and Big Tech have a bias that you do not share.
• Don’t help them in their mission to destroy your business.

“Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”

You don’t have to read between the lines. “Universally accessible” means free.

Google is not alone in this bias. All the big tech companies want content to be free, supported by advertising. If you don’t believe me, try to find a way to have a subscription-only podcast. You can do it, but it’s not easy.

Why do they have this bias?

1. They want all content to be open so they can index it. In the age of AI, this also means they can import your content into their language models and use your expertise without paying you for it. See for yourself. Ask ChatGPT a question and see if it gives anybody any credit for the answer.
2. They want everything to be paid for with advertising because they control the advertising ecosystem. And speaking of advertising, if you haven’t already, read Bob Hoffman’s Adscam for a little context.
3. Monetizing everything with advertising justifies collecting information on everybody so that advertising can be “targeted.” This gives them a monopoly on first-party data, which is the coin of the realm they have created.

Publishers were wrong to fall for all this, and I don’t know if there’s a reasonable path out of the mess. But keep these things in mind.

• Big Tech’s business model is to steal your content and your customers.
• Sometimes they’ll pay a pittance to content creators who are willing to go along with their scheme. Don’t fall for it.
• Every time you help their business, you undercut yours.

Here are some strategies to consider going forward.

• Put your content behind a paywall and do not allow any bots to index it. Yes, this will hurt your Google search rankings, but
  • the era of the search engine is fading, and
  • this strategy will postpone the day when AI makes you irrelevant.
• Invest in technologies that promote subscription services. Quit allowing Big Tech to use your content to promote its business model.
• Focus on your relationship with your customers through your platform.
• Consider joint ventures with like-minded publishers to create a platform that serves and protects the interests of the reader, the author, and the publisher without feeding the Big Tech monster.

Technology is not your enemy

The foregoing battle cry against Big Tech is not a call to throw your shoes into the machinery and start a jihad against computers. Computers are wonderful things. You need to use technology, but you need to use it to promote your business – not Google’s.

That’s my bias.

Whenever money exchanges hands, somebody wants to get in the middle of that transaction and take their cut. Big Tech has done that on an astounding scale.

Resist.