We Need Your Email Address
www.404media.co
AI stealing our work. The collapse of social networks. The need to pay journalists to produce impactful journalism. Here is why we are asking for your email address to read 404 Media.

this is an interesting article on the difficulties of running anything as SEO makes everything worse, AI proliferates, and things generally get worse for journalism. probably best summarized by this paragraph:

The long answer is that, through our own reporting, we are realizing that in order to combat the fracturing of social media platforms, a Google discoverability crisis fueled by AI generated spam and AI-fueled SEO, and a media business environment that is in utter freefall, we need to be able to reach our readers directly using a platform that we own and control. To do that, we need your email address.

but it’s a very good read in general, and i’d encourage you to read the whole thing.

  • Fauxreigner@beehaw.org
    2·
    9 months ago

    You can also do this in Gmail natively by using a plus sign instead of the hyphen. E.g. myemail+newsletter@gmail.com will deliver, as the plus and everything between it and the @ are ignored. This may work on other platforms too.

    Or, as mentioned in another comment, you can do this easily with a domain you own. Although you may get the occasional call from a merchant validating that StoreName@mydomain.com is an actual order.

    • Crotaro@beehaw.org
      1·
      9 months ago

      Oh that’s a cool and really helpful thing I didn’t know about Gmail! I think I’ll use the plus-trick for the few sites that won’t play ball with Port87! Then, on that front, Port87 only has the advantage that people who try to mail the bare address would receive an automated response, telling them to use one of the sub-adresses (you can choose which to show in this automated reply).