The Article As A Slideshow →
MG Siegler on splitting articles into many-page “slideshows”, a common practice at Business Insider:
Both the reader and the writer lose as a result of this nonsense. But Business Insider wins, I suppose.
Unscrupulous or desperate web publishers will always invent new ways to inflate pageviews and defraud advertisers into paying for more reader attention than they’re actually getting.
And it will always work.
Like running a check-cashing or payroll-advance lending service to take advantage of the poor, or selling extended warranties that don’t really cover what buyers think they cover, or being a tremendous patent troll like Nathan Myhrvold, there will always be ways to make money that are a net drain on the world — that take from society rather than give to it.
I couldn’t sleep at night if I made my living like that, but not everyone shares these priorities and values. And you can bet that the people running Business Insider don’t give a damn what they do to anyone’s writing — whether they own it or not — in the quest to squeeze a few more pennies out of our “eyeballs”.