Probably the way he is arguably more responsible for "destroying" it was by deliberately choosing against selling out for big money. If he had sold out, it woul

Probably the way he is arguably more responsible for "destroying" it was by deliberately choosing against selling out for big money. If he had sold out, it would have been monetized, thus costing more money, and it would have been easier for journalism to compete against it. It's kind of a perverse argument overall, generosity being responsible for killing industry. But even if he had sold out and there had been a higher price point set, someone else could have undercut it, since classified ads are pretty easy. So if anything he just accelerated the inevitable. But also interesting that the value of journalism (the specialized abilities of the profession) was funded by something that could be commoditized like that. Makes me think more about the post-scarcity economy. This is an example of how it changed something that could be commoditized, meaning something that didn't take particularly specialized skills and could easily be cheaply automated, but didn't change something that did require specialized skills, like journalism skills. So maybe that means the way to future-proof is to make sure your specialized abilities aren't funded by non-specialized abilities.