Publishers and TV networks loved Facebook. They saw it as free marketing. An easy way to reach a new audience. They saw it as both a driver of traffic and ratings. So they gave away their content and employed people to do it - instead of creating unique content for return users.

Then Facebook got bigger and diluted the ad market which meant display in particular on news sites was devalued. So publishers were getting less for their own ads and having to give content free to Facebook in return for referrals back to those cheap ads.

Most publishers hired people to push social media content instead of people tasked to monetise it. It’s easy to say 85% of our traffic comes from social. But I bet 85% of your revenue doesn’t. Publishers needed to be smarter in the way they diversify revenue streams.

Publishers got lazy and today they got burned. Don’t blame Facebook or Murdoch or the government. This is decades of people in middle management not understanding their audience. How have millions of Facebook posts affected viewers of TV shows? Ratings were dying before Netflix.

TV shows have paid millions to people to ‘engage’ a social audience that has made zero impact to ratings and digital revenue. How many hours are spent curating social content for no return when time could be spent improving your product?

Should you give all your retirement savings to Madoff because he promises to continually grow it? No. People who consume news will find it. Those who stumble across it in a feed are of little business value. Facebook is a bully but news orgs handed over their lunch money daily.