Ethics and good journalism -- that's what BI is sacrificing for rapid growth, according to
McCarthy, who strongly suggests that BI's aggregation techniques regularly "go against the basic principles of fair use." On a deeper level, McCarthy hints at the possibility that venture-backed media
companies are predisposed to poor ethics, production shortcuts and ultimately inferior content.
"It's worth noting that venture-backed media companies can very much be in a race against time for growth," McCarthy writes. "Investors want a return on their money and, given the economics of Web news, that almost always requires exponential growth in uniques and pageviews."