Google and Publisher's Rights

Germany currently has a fiercely fought debate, if publishers should share in the income, Google accumulates through using the publishers content.
As the publishers slowly lose any basis to gain income, the discussion is not only a hypothetical one, but one really determining the future of organized publishing.
Though most parties in the discussion overlook the strategic importance of this discussion.

Google did not really get the point of the discussion in comparing the publishers request with a hypothetical share, hardware providers could as consequence also request for making the internet possible.
Publishers do not determine the functionality of the internet, but provide the content.
Hardware providers already share in the success of the internet,
publishers who 'create' the content, do not get a share, but everyone thinks he can spread their created content for free, while the content will not be created much longer, if the current development continues.
Should this discussion should not be resolved, the future will look rather bleak in ways of well researched content on the internet.

But as publishers also did undermine their own demands by spending less and less on research, replacing all experienced employees with freelancers (nothing against them) and student volunteers working for free, the publishers already lost the only unique advantage they had. As a result this discussion soon will not be of any kind of importance much longer, as publishers are loosing their believability fast.

That publishers 'sell' their articles and make them part of an advertisement deal, does not help to increase their believability.

One suggestion to resolve the topic would be, as not the publisher, but the language determines the online search, that Germany as a nation shares in the created income accumulated with the German language results by Google.
Germany can share the generated income to its own liking with the German publishers and content providers (which in principle is every German speaking internet user putting something publicly visible online).

News and Region

The way we consume information and get our daily news changes rapidly.
Newspapers lose their monopoly and information becomes much more 'ad libidum'.
In such a time we can get in contact and talk with likeminded people at the other side of the world. But at the same time we lose our common ground to talk to our neighbour.
Twenty years ago you greeted a neighbour in the morning discussing todays headline in the newspaper.
You no longer can do this nowadays, because in the rare case he still reads a daily newspaper, you most likely read another one or do not at all.
For two people with the same basis of information to meet in real life gets harder from day to day. But it does not really cause problems. We still have the weather and climate to talk about.
Perhaps that is the reason why climate turns out to be the most discussed topic in all groups of society nowadays. Nothing else is of so much concern to all of us.