Paywalls, Patreons, and the Digital Divide

If you haven’t heard of the Digital Divide, you’ve certainly lived it. The Digital Divide describes unequal access to information technology, such as the internet, and how that limits full participation in society. If you’ve lived down a road where the only cellular coverage or internet connection is dodgy, you’ve experienced the digital divide.

Another facet of the Digital Divide is the Information Divide, and as internet connectivity improves it’s a facet we need to become more aware of. The Information Divide describes unequal access to information, and it’s a divide that just access to the internet won’t be able to solve.

There was a time when access to the internet could be seen as a sure fire way to ensure access to information. That I can now access the internet on my smartphone outside Agnew’s General Store when not that long ago I couldn’t, doesn’t mean that trustworthy and reliable information sources are available to me. I know you might be thinking, I can “just Google it,” right? Unfortunately, there are many barriers between us and the information we might be seeking, including Google itself.

While Google’s mission “to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful” goes back to its bygone “don’t be evil” days, it arguably hasn’t been able to live up to the task. Even though the Google search engine is one of the most accessed websites on the internet, and has become synonymous with knowledge discovery, the monetization of these services inevitably run counter to universal access.

Monetization, shorthand for how to make money off of something, has been an ongoing problem since the World Wide Web became a thing. The question of how to take what was invented as a public good (“the web is for everyone” Sir Tim Berners-Lee has been quoted as saying), and make money off of it has been a persistent quest of big tech companies. However, that pursuit has, to borrow the words of Facebook, caused them to “move fast and break things” for others.

A good example of this is how Google and Facebook completely upended the revenue model for media. Big tech’s implementation of ads to generate revenue had a knock-on effect of drawing ad revenue away from media publishers. This has left journalism in the unenviable position of being both dependent on search and social media to get eyes on their news, while suffering income losses as ad revenue drops. And, because people deserve to be paid for the labour it takes to create reliable and trustworthy content, this has led to a decrease in ad-supported news available online in favour of other revenue streams.

Paywalls are one common way that media publishers have countered this loss of revenue, but other models also exist. Some smaller independent media companies use subscription services to provide more in depth bonus content. Some freelance journalists use services like Patreon to provide content to subscribers. Many try to balance the principle of information as a public good with the need to make money to live. But this still means that access to information becomes tiered and your access becomes dependent on what you can afford. And when you can’t afford good, well researched information, misinformation and disinformation too easily fill the void.

The Canadian government followed in the footsteps of the Australian government and attempted to rectify this through the Online News Act, forcing a framework by which big tech companies would be required to negotiate with media companies to compensate them for linking to their news stories. This had the unfortunate effect of Google and Meta (parent to Facebook, Instagram, and others) taking their proverbial ball and going home as both companies simply opted out of carrying news links at all. This occurred as wildfires closed in on Yellowknife, NWT, effectively cutting off an entire channel of information to users who might be looking for up-to-the-minute safety information. Google has since opted to resume posting their news results, but Facebook remains an information desert. There is an honest debate to be had on whether the Online News Act will ever be effective or has only succeeded in breaking the very thing it was meant to fix. Personally, I’m pessimistic on the former, and more convinced of the latter.

There needs to be a mechanism to allow universal access to information as a public good, and some do exist. Public libraries, for one. Public and not-for-profit broadcasters, for another. However, the push and pull between for-profit interests and public goods always means we’re at risk of losing those public goods. Therefore, we need a concerted effort to bridge the Information Divide. We need to ensure that as connectivity to the internet increases, that there’s something actually there to see when we connect to it.

Learn more

Sen. Simons on by Bill C-18 is the wrong response to the Canadian journalism crisis. 2023. Senator Paula Simons. (YouTube) Last accessed 2024/07/25.

Magazine. 2023. Jeff Jarvis. (Bloomsbury)

Tim Berners-Lee on 30 years of the world wide web: 'We can get the web we want'. 2019. Alex Hern. (The Guardian) Last accessed 2024/07/25.

Google Search Really Has Gotten Worse, Researchers Find. 2024. Jason Koebler. (404 Media) Last accessed 2024/07/25.

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