ePublic Good (Public Good) Prediction comes true in New Zealand

More than ten years ago I wrote the article  Is the internet making new public goods? ePublic Goods. In the article, I reasoned the internet is producing, based on the decline and failure in the entrainment and news media industries, a new type of Public Goods, ePublic Goods. e for electronic, or internet-based.

Public Goods are, along with Private, Club, and Commons (Common Pool) Goods, a key phenomenon in economics, 

Public goods are supported by the Governments, and I predicted that this, at the risk of democracy, may happen with the media too someday. If this is true this is not a good thing at all. 

Firms in these industries are not profiting and are failing due to the loss of sales from the internet and have been downsizing. This is akin to the examples o market failure with the streetlights, fireworks displays, lighthouses and others. To me, the media and entertainment firms are failing due to the same problems as with these normal Public Good.  The non-rivalry is no one is bothered (the experience is not diminished) by someone else's use of the good and the non-excludable is where one cannot control access to the knowledge, news, music, etc. The 'free-rider problem' is now the free-copy problem.



Without being political and just trying to explain phenomena, is this what has happened in New Zealand recently? From the Government website, it appears so. The current government are offering money to help the ailing industry.  This is not just a subsidy to help all media, it is conditional on a (controversial)  sitting government policy. 

Please read the following. 

Public Interest Journalism Fund

Google search: New Zealand Government 50 million to media

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Natural fractal lake, Arethusa Pool, the worlds only?

Fractal Dimension, (Economic's) Elasticity and Complexity

ePublic Goods. Is the internet making new public goods?