I think those websites are over using trackers in their websites for extra profit with no care for the privacy of their users, I highly recommend avoiding them.
For comparsion:
- Associated Press(AP).
- Al Jazeera.
- ABC.
- BBC.
- CBC.
- DW.
- France24.
- Sky News.
- The Register.
- Tech Policy Press.
Update: added Wired and more websites for comparison.
I feel like every single organization that does news has a crushing need for “extra” profit anywhere they can get their hands on.
I’m not saying you are wrong. You should be using an adblocker and ideally Tor Browser, anyway. But also, I would be a little bit gentle on them if they just want to be able to keep paying their electric bills.
With all respect, I think you are being too gentle on them.
The Verge is owned by Vox Media, which is close to having a Monopoly on the news(They own The Verge, Vox, NYMag{Which alone has many sections like Vulture and Curbed for example} and many more.) They are partly owned by Warner Bros. Discovery (25%).
In short they have way more than enough to keep paying their electricity bills.
Yeah, it’s all just an inevitable slide downwards into the CNN-ification of any news.
- They start as 404 Media or Grist, just good stuff.
- They have to pay people, and making news doesn’t pay.
- Eventually, one way or another, they wind up getting taken over by people with deeper pockets. They are ostensibly doing some good stuff, but it’s worrying that they’re being bankrolled by bad people. Why are these people wanting to pay out so much to control the news, when it doesn’t turn a profit? All the Vox Media outlets, all the Conde Nast outlets, all those little “not NewsCorp but also not Mother Jones” places, fall in this category.
- They stay in that unpleasant limbo for some length of time, still generally making okay news. A year? A month? Twenty years? No one can say.
- Eventually, it becomes clear that they aren’t speaking for themselves anymore, but on behalf of the people with the money. Vice News. The Washington Post. It’s a goddamned shame. There are still people working there who are good people, but the overall editorial output has gone to the dark side.
- After a while, they simply take off the mask, and become CNN, or the Washington Post.
Not every news outlet needs to follow that pattern. But every one which doesn’t have some other source of funding which is immune to the pressures which will push them down that slide, will follow it. Eventually. And it’s a bad thing. I’m just saying that blaming them for trying to make some money during step #3 is maybe allocating the blame to the wrong part of the equation.
Low key bootlicker energy. Multi billion dollar companies own a lot of these outlets. They ain’t hurting for money.
