I will sleep so much better at night knowing Google will soon be joining the ranks of Microsoft, businesses too successful for the government not to paralyze in the public interest.

Yes, the answer to this Google dilemma is massive litigation and regulation.

I’m glad the government is baling out GM though. Can’t wait to see the new line of Obama-mandated solar powered SUV’s.

If I get a position with Government Motors, will that be a “green” job? Not sure if I’d look good in a green collar…

The point is that technology changes, and we have to adapt to it or risk extinction. On the other hand, Google is a parasite. Whether it evolves to an equilibrium that allows the press to continue in something like its historic form or not, it seems unlikely that Google, itself, will remain unchanged if it destroys the organ it is feeding on. Somebody is going to have to produce the information to be searched. Long term, it probably won’t be just the hobbyists, content with recognition from remuneration.

“Congress shall make no law prohibiting the free exercise of the press. Enter the embedded Journalist. Thomas Jefferson somehow knew on September 25, 1789 that somewhere in the future the Forth Estate Corporatocracy would one day be in a position to transmogrify “Freedom of the Press” into the freedom to secretly negotiate with the Government over terms and conditions regarding the policies that the Government wanted the Forth Estate to “wag the dog” on in exchange for what the Forth Estate wanted in return. Somehow Thomas Jefferson knew that one day the Forth Estate would sell out and make a deal with the Administration to escape the Digital Dutch Oven.
Thomas Jefferson knew.”

When it’s all said and done, they’re going to get a government bailout. The MSM papers will, inevitably, convince the Obama Adminstration that their dying product is too precious to fail, forcing taxpayers to shell out even more money to keep another product on the market that Americans no longer demand.

Why not nationalize the New York Times? Isn’t their editorial staff already on the Fed’s payroll?

That’s a plunge most are unwilling to take, hence this request for collusion. Everyone is afraid that the first papers to go digital-only will lose their advertising revenue and not survive, despite the reduction in costs. Those advertising dollars will shift to more traditional outlets that keep their dead tree editions.

So by now everyone might admit that the transition is inevitable, but no one wants to do it first. While no one is willing to make that transition, all the outlets suffer, and the existence of those outlets puts a cap on the growth of new, alternative outlets, as advertising dollars can be fairly conservative.

Eventually it will all work itself out. Many may not like the results. All the traditional outlets will fail. Only new ones will remain, those unfettered by dead tree distribution costs. Those outlets may bear little or no resemblance to the old ones. They will be organized by topic, not by geography. Advertising agencies won’t be able to play with numbers anymore since digital distribution generates figures that are a lot less fungible.

It might actually be true that newspapers can’t survive, as a group, without some kind of gentleman’s agreement.

I think it is equally true that they should not get it. What we need to be looking at is creating new, digital outlets that perform the same social functions and provide similar value, and how to convince advertising revenues to fund them and abandon the old models.

Oh, editorial note: …Google would someone somehow decide to cough up some newspaper bailout money…