I started seeing more and more non-free content (paywalled or non freely licensed articles and videos) and less Creative Commons or freely licensed content.
All of this is making me worried about the free content future.
Why aren’t people worried about that and why they are not doing something about it?
I don’t know of any non-profit currently that advocate for free-er world, which is essential for the libre culture.
It comes down to the number of mouths that have to fed at the end of the day. Individuals producing news stories appear ‘free’ for the masses because they have alternative ways of earning, such as monetization on a large platform.
News agencies, however, are in a strange place these days. They used to be private and used to have a default subscription fee. You paid for the paper or you read one that someone left behind somewhere. Nobody’s buying papers anymore and they’ve had to move online. In addition they’ve been purchased by giant conglomerates or billionaires. It’s no longer a matter of making sure their employees are fed by producing a great product… the billionaires and CEO’s just want money. Since everyone’s ad-blocking these days they charge subscriptions and leverage tech to deny their product to those who don’t pay.
There will always be alternative news sources, and god knows I prefer them to 18 tv stations in the same city using the exact same propagandized scripts. You just have to put in the effort to look for them. That’s the fee you’re paying. Time.