ePublic Good (Public Good) Prediction comes true in New Zealand
Over ten years ago, I wrote the article Is the Internet Making New Public Goods? ePublic Goods. In the article, I argued that, based on the decline and failure of the entertainment and news media industries, the internet is producing a new type of Public Goods, ePublic Goods. e for electronic or internet-based. Public Goods, along with Private, Club, and Commons (Common Pool) Goods, are a key phenomenon in economics. Governments support public goods, and I predicted that this may happen with the media, too, someday, at the risk of democracy. If this is true, it is not a good thing at all. Firms in these industries are not profiting, are failing due to internet sales losses, and have been downsizing. This is akin to examples of market failure, such as streetlights, fireworks displays, lighthouses, and others. The media and entertainment firms are failing for the same reasons as these normal Public Goods. Non-rivalry is when no one is bothered (t...