I would recommend anyone planning to have an opinion on Google and Facebook in Australia actually read the government’s explanation of the proposed law. Some observations. 1 / https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/legislation/ems/r6652_ems_2fe103c0-0f60-480b-b878-1c8e96cf51d2/upload_pdf/JC000725.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf

1: This is NOT only about republishing content. It’s not about ‘using news’. It’s not even only about snippets. It covers bare links themselves.

2: Only news organisations (and ones with >A$150k revenue that pass a test that they really are ‘news’) get paid for links. So even if you think that links should have to be paid for, that’s not the plan here. Only links to news. Not all the other links.

3: it’s all or nothing: Google and FB are not allowed to link to ANY news if they have not come to a deal under the Australian terms with any Aussie news organisation.

And then a question: if Facebook has to pay every time a link to a news site is posted anywhere on FB, does that include the news sites themselves posting links?

There are lots of possible opinions about this. But, it is not ‘sharing revenue’ and it is not about ‘using news content’.

So:
* This is not 'sharing tech revenue from news'. They don't make money from news. It's a tiny share of traffic and a smaller share of ads
* It's not about 'using news' - this covers bare links alone
The law says: if you post a link to NewsCorp on Facebook, NewsCorp gets paid

A new essay - Paying for news. https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2021/2/17/paying-for-news

Newspaper revenue really started to collapse well over a decade ago, and we've been discussing what to do about it for almost as long. None of the arguments have changed, but the numbers got worse.