404 Media was founded in 2023 by former staff of Vice Media's Motherboard after it filed for bankruptcy.[6][7] Among the founding members of 404 Media were Jason Koebler, the former editor-in-chief at Motherboard, as well as senior editors Emanuel Maiberg and Samantha Cole, and writer Joseph Cox.[1][3]Fast Company summarized the outlet's creation as "bootstrapp[ing] a spartan setup consisting of a Stripe account and the Ghost web-hosting platform".[8]
Business model
404 Media is owned by its reporters, a model that was inspired by organizations such as Defector Media and Hell Gate.[3] The company offers two paid tiers, from a $100 annual subscription to a $1,000 annual subscription.[8]
In January 2024, the website began requiring email addresses to make it harder for websites using Artificial Intelligencearticle spinners to scrape its articles. As of February 2024, the company is profitable.[9]
Notable reports and coverage
In January 2024, the outlet reported claiming that AI-generated rewrites of 404 Media articles had begun to show up on search engines, with some of these AI-generated stories prioritized over the original article on Google Search.[10][11]
In February 2024, 404 Media released a report alleging that Tumblr and WordPress were selling users' data to AI companies OpenAI and Midjourney for training purposes.[2]404 Media has also covered how so-called "ghost kitchens", delivery-focused restaurants on apps such as UberEats and DoorDash that sell food from other restaurants, have utilized generative AI to create product images.[12]
Reception
In an article about 2024 media industry layoffs, the Financial Times highlighted 404 Media as a successful new media venture amid an "existential crisis" in the industry. The article stated that the publication has been noted for "publishing an eye-catching range of stories about the tech sector", and noted that "Not only is it producing good stories but its founders say it is breaking even".[10]
On 25 July 2024, the Electronic Frontier Foundation announced that 404 Media was to receive one of three 2024 EFF Awards for their "incisive investigative reports, deep-dive features, blogs, and scoops about topics such as hacking, cybersecurity, cybercrime, sex, artificial intelligence, consumer rights, government and law enforcement surveillance, privacy, and the democratization of the internet."[13]