"Everyone's for Sale": A Generation of Digital-Media Darlings Prepares for a Frigid Winter

``As the threat of the so-called FAANGs--Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Google--continues to grow, large legacy players, such as AT&T and Time Warner, or Disney and 21st Century Fox, are combining at a rabid pace. Certain heritage brands, like Time, Fortune, and The Atlantic, have landed in the warm bosoms of philanthropic billionaires. New York Media, the parent company of New York and a coterie of buzzy Web brands including The Cut, is pursuing a sale or strategic investment. A number of publications that ascended during the post-downturn digital gold rush have found safe harbors: HuffPost in Verizon (via AOL); Business Insider in Axel Springer; Quartz in the Japanese financial-intelligence firm Uzabase. But they, too, are under the gun to perform for their parent companies. Verizon's media unit, for one, is in the midst of a rejiggering after falling short on advertising revenue. "The whole media sector is under pressure, unless you're a FAANG company," said Vox Media C.E.O. Jim Bankoff. "You can see that impact in all the big mergers that have been happening, but you also see it in companies that are scaling back or selling. Whether you're a company that started in the past decade or a century ago, whether you're funded by a billionaire or a V.C., you're not immune to the changes in the industry, or the uncertainty that those changes bring."''