In recent months, internet users searching for articles from Scroll and other websites have realised that they don’t actually have to click on a web link and read through an entire piece: instead, Google offers them a terse synopsis on top generated by artificial intelligence.
It is convenient but it isn’t ideal. Though these summaries save users a little time, they are denied the specific details that may be essential to gaining a nuanced perspective on the subject they are trying to understand.
For news publishers, it’s another nail in the coffin. The economics of the digital news business have long been undermined by intermediaries such as Google and Facebook cornering the bulk of advertising revenues.
With many who want to get a broad sense of the news now making do with the AI summaries, the number of visitors to websites are plunging – by 15% or more, according to some estimates. Lower readership means that firms lower the rates at which they place advertisements in publications, making it even more difficult to keep news operations going.
That’s why Scroll counts on our subscribers to sustain our reporting on the forces that are reshaping India – for better and worse.
At a time when the media is under pressure from a government suspicious of perspectives that may run contrary to the official narratives and as new technologies leach away revenues, we are counting on the engagement and commitment of our subscribers to help us keep reporting on the news that matters and the things that make life worth living.
As India celebrates 78 years of Independence, we at Scroll urge you to renew that commitment – and ask others to sign up to become subscribers too. Artificial intelligence, after all, is no match for real journalists on the ground.
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