[This is an excerpt from my 1995 Yale Law Journal article "Cheap Speech and What It Will Do," written for a symposium called "Emerging Media Technology and the First Amendment.) Thirty years later, I thought I'd serialize the piece here, to see what I may have gotten right—and what I got wrong.]
[a.] More Diversity
Even more than with music, the lower distribution costs will change what is available, as well as how it's available. High distribution costs have meant that media organs-newspapers, magazines, radio stations, TV stations-control which commentators are available and which aren't. Media organs may control based on their own political opinions, and they also control based on what their readers are likely to want. Even if a million people nationwide want to hear the Libertarian—or Socialist—view of things, there may be too few such people in each major market to make it worthwhile for newspapers to carry columns that appeal to these readers.
