Bloomberg’s website regularly dangles clickbait to one of their videos, which are pretty low grade ore. I’ve learned to ignore them. I’d like to know what their business model is: do they run these shorts on their regular TV shows?
Here’s an example: Why Amazon Hides Its Cheapest Price (and Where). It does not mention Amazon’s practice of having multiple listings of the same product at different points in the website (a result of their marketplace and perhaps price discrimination). No, it’s a resale price maintenance article: you can’t find out the price without putting the product in your cart. Apparently manufacturers don’t want cheap prices associated with their product. They may do this so that they have better relations with retailers who provide services, like explaining/selling the cell phone’s latest features to their customers.
That last paragraph contains more information than their 90 second + advertisement spot. Admittedly, it also used undefined jargon. Is there a large market of businessmen who prefer receiving non-textual information? (And if there are that many dyslexics, why do Bloomberg’s TV pieces have so many words flying around?) Do people watch this busy junk on their Bloomberg terminals?
What’s the point of these clips? It seems to me they are inefficient for both their content provider and their viewers. FWIW, Felix Salmon notes that nobody watches Bloomberg TV and that it loses $100 million per year. As a regular visitor to their website, I can only shake my head. ISTM they should nix the network and highlight their investigative work better on the website. Easier said than done of course.