Big Tech’s Grip Leaves Rest of World Facing Closure

Rest of World could shut down after the social-media and web-search traffic it depends on evaporated, leaving employees facing a possible wind-down as founder Sophie Schmidt looks for a new home for the publication. The people controlling the platforms changed how news travels; now, the journalists who built the outlet face the consequences.

A contingency for the people on staff

Two people familiar with the plans said Rest of World chose a wind-down date in late January as a contingency. The date was meant to give employees exit packages and time to look for new jobs. In an email to donors, founder and primary financial backer Sophie Schmidt wrote that the publication would “cease publishing as a standalone entity” at the end of January, The New York Times reported. Schmidt declined to comment.

In recent months, Schmidt has spoken with several large institutions about potentially absorbing the publication, one person familiar with the situation told Semafor. A person familiar with Schmidt’s thinking said she is proud of the organization’s staff and journalism, but has privately acknowledged that falling audience numbers have reduced the publication’s impact. The contingency plan makes the stakes concrete: the organization’s future will also determine what happens to the people doing its work.

Rest of World launched in 2020 to shift Western perspectives by reporting global technology stories often overlooked by mainstream U.S. news outlets. A few months after launch, Schmidt called it her “life’s project” and told The Wall Street Journal she would commit $60 million. Initially organized as a nonprofit, Schmidt funded the outlet largely herself, rather than relying on advertising or subscriptions. It hired dozens of journalists and built a fast network of freelancers.

Platforms set the terms

Insiders cited broader online traffic problems facing publishers. They pointed to Meta’s decision to deprioritize links to news articles and the rise of chatbots and AI summaries, which they said had decimated search traffic. An outlet can produce reporting, but it can't make platform owners send readers its way.

Rest of World’s own changes didn't stop the losses. The publication reprioritized Western readers, focused on regions such as China that it believed fit its mission while appealing more readily to American readers, and began requiring visitors to register to read articles. The audience kept declining.

The organization’s leaders also blamed a cultural shift to the right in the technology community. One senior leader said readers who had previously expressed liberal values and an appetite for global journalism had grown disillusioned with news media and now preferred inward-looking podcasts, YouTube shows and chatbot outputs. The outlet, meanwhile, wasn't positioned to benefit from increased media attention tied to Trump and U.S. politics.

Who gets heard—and who owns the microphone

Media companies built around written stories have struggled to adapt to short- and long-form video consumption, while many have retreated to cultivating niche audiences. The report’s “Max’s view” section described technology media as especially fragmented, increasingly dominated by largely sycophantic outlets owned by decision-makers. It said a new generation of tech news consumers had turned from Wired and The Verge toward self-congratulatory or friendly podcasts, newsletters and X accounts.

Rest of World won critical acclaim and broke stories that prompted global policy changes, including reporting on Uber Eats in South Africa and mapping in rural Borneo. But the report said outlets relying on expensive stories published somewhat infrequently have struggled. It called the situation ironic: an organization launched by the scion of the former Google CEO had fallen victim to changes Big Tech brought to the internet.

The article describes no grassroots response or mutual-aid effort, and no electoral or legislative fix. Instead, it reports an attempt to find an institutional home, a contingency designed to provide employees exit packages, and a media system where platforms and audience habits shape which journalism reaches readers. The newsroom’s future remains tied to decisions made outside its control.