Google has announced a revamped news product called Google News Showcase, the Wall Street Journal reports. The new service is meant to curate news for consumers while financially compensating the creators of these articles, such as local papers.
Previously, news aggregators like Google News would provide a feed of various websites and publications available online for free, capturing usage data to further help their business. The websites themselves would be deprived of data, financial compensation, or advertisement revenue.
Now, Google News Showcase will be free to consumers, but also pay news websites for their articles. Some paywall articles will also be available for free to consumers, with options to fully subscribe. The New York Times, for example, will be paid $100 million per year for three years to share its content with Google.
Google’s solution is a way to find a compromise between those who create content and those who distribute it. Facebook and California are already coming to blows over this, with Facebook threatening to pull all news out of the state altogether.
This enhanced news experience is also a way for Google to remain competitive in the news domain with other Big Tech companies. Apple’s Apple News + is a product that mixes free content supported by ads with upscale magazine subscriptions for $10/month or less if bundled with other Apple services. Google has not announced its full lineup of sources or whether it will charge consumers.
