CCN is shutting down
If you've been part of the crypto space for a while, you are well aware of CCN and their reporting. They've been for years the biggest crypto news outlet online, but today they are announcing their shutdown. Why you ask? Well, they blame google.
ccn.com
Google's Power
I don't know what to think about this, but I'm pretty much convinced we've done this to ourselves. On the one hand it's indisputable that google has provided immense value and has truly pioneered the growth of the internet as we know it, but on the other hand they have too much power.
Those who are strict on their ideas of free market see this as a consequence of capitalism, but there are some voices who understand that the downsides far outweigh ideological lines. In other words, if google's power is akin to a market monopoly, then it paradoxically destroys the free market.
Why is it google's fault?
According to an article posted, and to some of the comments I've read on the subject, Google just updated their search engine and the results have been disastrous for the ccn's web traffic. So the accusation here, is that google intentionally is controlling the information by artificially hiding some websites over others.
Is this true? Well, it seems to be the case, and of course CCN is not the only crypto related website who has seen their traffic and thus income reduced immensely, but the "shadow banning" for lack of a better term is not exclusive to crypto.
It's biased
Without a doubt it is, but don't make the mistake of thinking this is the deep state or some dark entity behind a curtain pulling the strings. This is about money, it always has been, it always will be.
As a matter of fact it seems like some of the traffic has been "redirected", if you will, to more mainstream outlets and they are not specifically right wing or left wing, just more mainstream. This revelation makes it easy to understand what might be going on.
What to do?
The simplest way to explain it is this: Begin to make the transition. There are choices out there for google, gogoduck comes to mind, there are choices for browsers, Brave Browser is quite fantastic. But if the users don't "vote" if you will with our choices, then things are likely to continue as they are.
Does CCN shutting down make me a bear? No, not really... and as a matter of fact I would not be completely surprised if new oopsies get revealed in the coming days, oopsies mind you, that probably have nothing to do with google as well.
MenO
Google is currently desperately trying to keep their Hold upon everything. This certainly wasn't on my Radar but one thing which is on my Radar is the Huwawei Debacle.
Huwawei is currently on the Blacklist for Quote and quote Security threat which resulted Google to cut ties off Huwawei but a few Days ago just when Huwawei teased their new Android Fork OS now all of a sudden Google wants to play Ball as they might just lose their Monopoly on Android if things stay the same.
What are your thoughts on this @meno?
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It's complete BS. They can't have it both ways, they can't both claim Android is open source, anyone is allowed to do as they please, and then claim Haweii is going to fork and thus endanger customers.
I mean, I'm sure they will talk about it being part of the US Ban, and will try to enforce their will through lobbying, but it's ridiculous and should not be taken seriously at all.
While Google cutting off traffic is a huge problem and a risk any publisher or has to think about you also need to diversify your traffic sources social media, referral, push notifications, email, affiliates, display and programmatic are all ways of getting traffic! The fact that they also went tits up so quickly after the change shows they didn’t manage funds in case of emergency!
It’s sad and I do feel for them I mean it can happen to anyone but it shows like you said we give google too much say in how we explore the net I do use bing and duckduckgo on occasion since they provide different results when I’m looking for sources of content but the majority of people simply are too lazy or too habitual to care
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"Unbiased" is the joke from them.
The creators might try to be but the people they hired and the guest posts(which were pretty crappy) are biased. They run many probch posts for a while.
There other "news posts" were trash.
However....
It pretty sad that 60? people lost their jobs(No offense but that alot of people I think it competitors have less with more users...)
Brave Browser really won't solve it but a good way for publishers to earn money.
Also suprised they were still using google ads.
I remember back in the day-google block almost all ads to crypto sites.
Thought they would be switched to crypto based ads such as a-ads,coinad and mellowsads. Welp...
Search engine is also a key of problem. Duckduckgo? Is just bing :P
I wonder when more crypto sites will use Steempress along with other cool steem tools to help earn money and gain more traffic.
It's mind numbing to me that crypto based news sites aren't utilizing Steem more. Even if you don't earn a dime in Steem (though they certainly would) you are getting click-through from your target readership! If CCN was sharing every article here then they could have been replacing search traffic with additional social traffic. It's sad it's taking so long for even our own industry to adopt this network.
I'm glad to see CCN go. So much of their content was trash click bait; bought and paid for FUD/FOMO.
The fact remains that Google has all that power and they are sure to wield it even more flagrantly in the future.
An interesting situation @meno and I am very sorry that the CCN is closed. Perhaps the CCN will find a way out of this situation and continue to work!
Truely speaking i am bit new in this fileld as compare to other people who is here from few years as well. I was not aware about the things going on with the ccn thank you for leting us know dude.
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As a website owner, i always live in fear of a Google algorithm update. Last year my traffic was down by half overnight. This year it came back despite no changes on my end. Hard to plan for the future like that.
I made some off handed comment to my wife the other day about how I thought Google's results weren't very helpful lately. The sites I used to visit or their relevancy seemed distant. She shrieked in agreement. I'm trying to use DuckDuckGo more often, but even that doesn't always get me where I want to go.