Toward a sustainable independent publication

By Michael Fraase

Thursday, 02 May 2002 03:23PM CST

Section: Publishing

Since early February 1993, when we migrated our electronic publishing endeavors to the web, ARTS & FARCES internet has been a nonrival, nonexcludable, pure public good. Like public broadcasting or a lighthouse, it’s a pure public good in that everyone can use it and no one can force you to pay for using it. Moreover, ARTS & FARCES internet is a nonrival good: you can use it (mostly) all you want without reducing the content available to the next user. Finally it’s a nonexcludable good in the sense that anyone that finds the publication can use it.

Maybe it’s time to change our approach and make ARTS & FARCES internet an excludable good, available only to those who contribute in some way. After all, the costs to produce ARTS & FARCES internet are not insignificant, although the costs to replicate and distribute its content approach zero. While ARTS & FARCES internet has never been intended to be a profit center, one of the few polices we have is that every project must be fun and sustainable.

The ARTS & FARCES partners are currently re-examining our online publishing business model and while we hope to retain ARTS & FARCES internet as a nonexcludable good, we’re not married to the notion.

Since its inception in 1979, ARTS & FARCES has maintained an open books policy. We have a history of making our business models, plans, profit margins, and financials transparent to our stakeholders. So, let’s take a back-of-the-envelope look at the hard costs associated with sustaining ARTS & FARCES internet:

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