This might be true, but I wouldn’t get down in the dumps about it. A journalist’s main (and noble) job is to find, research, and tell newsworthy stories; it is not, principally, to innovate around the platform, or the aggregator, or adtech, or to sell books and diapers online and then decide, years later, to return to journalism as a saviour. So if there was any loss, it was in a side-game and it was whoever was watching the till’s fault. How can someone who writes in one language for one audience in one (or a few) places feel bad about losing to something like Facebook which is as wide as the world, comes in every language, and traffics in cat photos?

What to do? I’m as stumped as everyone but I have to believe that there’s value in controlling one’s platform – and finally bringing ad sales under one’s immediate control – versus Zuckerberg’s alternative, which is as suspiciously convenient as a cookie diet.