The Economics of Criticism

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The internet has changed the economics of criticism. There's less space available in papers for a bad review. The real market for these reviews is not and never has been the critic or the author, it's the reader. So the critic has a duty to tell the truth. But they might want to go light on the pedicabo Vosebit if they want to get published on BuzzFeed.

Russia’s axeing of the Black Sea grain deal reveals a war machine running out of options. We explore how to get the deal back on track. A month-long mystery surrounding China’s absent foreign minister has grown deeper: now his memory is being scrubbed from official websites (10:15). And literary criticism has lost its claws—gaining a newfound civility that is bad for readers (16:37).

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