In the early 1990s, purveyors of the World Wide Web promised spectacular speeds of communication and that "information shall be free" at anytime and anywhere globally.
This pledge was a glimmer in the horizon in those early days and, in the decades that followed, the new digital technology would subsume, commandeer, monetise and weaponise every aspect of life as we know it.
However, in those formative decades, certain sceptics saw a paradox: digital technology could elevate the printed word to dizzying heights but it could also devalue it to worthlessness.
Late in the decade, a dissertation submitted to a famed British university, unnervingly titled "Death of a Newspaper", roughly outlined how and when the web will disseminate news and information faster than the speed of thought.
In the new millennium — editorial, advertising, marketing, circulation, the lot, — must combat or adapt to the disruption and destruction.
A dire prediction was soon manifested: against the web's merciless onslaught, many newspapers, magazines or anything printed globally would close down by 2008.
The mayhem marched ruthlessly on as the "information shall be free" incantation, heavily preached by predatory tech companies, was haplessly followed by print media as a viable business model lingered as a mirage.
Fledgling tech companies soon became super behemoths, wealthier than most governments, and began devouring every morsel of advertising and sales revenue that previously went to the print media. In short, the newspapers were hopelessly outmanoeuvered and outgunned by the tech titans.
In the mid-2000s at an international forum, it was implored that the print industry, newspapers especially, gang up as a cartel to plug the flow of online news and information in order to squeeze better financial terms from the tech titans.
It was laughed off as foolish, accused as a Google basher, particularly by tech gurus and apologists for the "information shall be free" tenet.
Apparently, it's not too late to reverse the clock: in Australia, the News Media Bargaining Code (or News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code) has compelled Google and Facebook to pay A$220 million in compensation to media groups last year. In Canada, the government introduced the Online News Act, leading Facebook to boycott Canadian news.
In Malaysia, Communications and Digital Minister Fahmi Fadzil has pledged that measures are being looked into so that long-suffering traditional media regain their fair share of the pie from tech companies.
In the meantime, media companies must collaborate in claiming their rightful dues from the likes of Google and Facebook. It's generations in the making but it's possible: at least the tech titans can be stopped from further usurping prints' rightful revenue.