The (very possible) dystopia of media without an audience

I'm reading an interesting article by Margaret Simons in Guardian where he warns of how AI is changing the relationship between journalists and the audience. According to his pessimistic prediction, the fact that more and more newspapers are signing financial agreements with Big Tech could ultimately lead to media outlets ceasing to be businesses that sell to consumers and becoming businesses that sell to other businesses. More and more people are getting their news from summaries found on Google or provided by AI. If the sale of information to the audience ceases, the implications could be serious: the citizen is no longer at the center of editorial decision-making, the tech oligarchy could have a decisive hand in shaping public discourse, and the media would lose the ability to set the public agenda because searches would determine what is discussed (and not the criteria).

The diagnosis is accurate, and we are already experiencing a similar situation because the media is the only animal that stumbles over the same stone twice. Many digital publications that operated under the thumb of viral traffic controlled by tech companies ended up going under when the tap was arbitrarily turned off. But this is what makes me optimistic: those who make a strong, independent editorial commitment, where their fundamental dependence is on their audience, survive. The problem is primarily social: the gap will widen between those who make their living from sensationalist summaries—imperfect, opaque, difficult to verify, biased—and those who have a healthy media diet based on rigorous journalism. EU sanctions for abusive practices and fair agreements with tech companies are welcome, but this third angle also needs to be addressed.