I often wonder how long the 'traditional media' has left.

Newspapers? Radio? Television? Young people don't do that.

I laughed when Meta stopped paying extortion to Australian media companies, and of course, now they want to find another way to force them to pay anyway.

Edit: actually, the government already has the power to do so. They simply need to 'designate' Meta, and can force them into mediating a deal. Meta is just taking the approach they don't do news, so are calling the government's bluff and I'd expect a court battle if the government tries to force it.

I also am a bit fearful of what would happen if Murdoch struck a deal for Meta to exclusively peddle only Fox/Sky News

Lastly, power hates decentralisation, as it is a loss of control. And these current media laws it's actually a very small step away from preventing eg Lemmy from posting news articles. All the government needs to do is 'designate' aussie.zone, and that would force mediation to media deals....