Google to media: Your problems aren't our fault

He continues, "Much of their anger is currently directed at Google, whom many executives view as getting all the benefit from the business relationship without giving much in return." He disagrees, saying that the facts "suggest otherwise."

Of course, the time spent complaining would probably be better spent looking for a solution.

The newspaper industry believes that Google is profiting by running ads alongside their content. Meanwhile, Google, which pulls in revenue of around $22 billion a year, says that ad revenue associated with news articles accounts for a "tiny fraction" of its revenue.

The missing link, here, is that the destruction of newspaper value does not necessary translate to an increase for Google. The availability of content via Google has wreaked havoc on the newspaper industry, effectively eliminating a market. The result is something less than a zero-sum game.

Schmidt's op-ed comes shortly after Google struck a deal with News Corp. to protect more of the news provider's content from free access without depriving its websites of search-based traffic.

Diplomatically, Schmidt communicated a vision of the future, in which a combination of free and paid content is accessed via e-readers, much as they thumbed through the newspaper ... once upon a time.