Over five years ago, I wrote a piece called "An Age of Patronage" where I speculated how arts and research will/may work in a free world.

Basically sketching out the "value-for-value" revolution before that was cute or Lightning worked well enough for it.

This month, I saw THREE print magazines launching/returning

FIRST: @asanoha and Bitcoin Art Magazine /Edition One #1604664
This one isn't quite like the others -- for instance, I doubt there's a billionaire bankrolling it? -- but it's still a bet on a return to slow-form PHYSICAL MAGAZINES.

Definitely in the age of quick-hit/fast and hot takes AI slop, there's some.
Scarcity works like that, too: facing infinite generation, only the physical and human become scarce (#1603955, #1608788, #1604664)

SECOND: LIFE magazine, a mainstay of 20th-century America, is back. From that NYT article:

The iconic magazine, known for its red-box logo and devotion to visual storytelling, will start publishing again next month as a quarterly print magazine.

This:

It enters a fractured media landscape that is worlds away from the publication’s midcentury heights of acclaim, before the internet, social media and artificial intelligence upended the business model of magazine publishing.
Daniel Okrent, who was the editor of Life magazine from 1992 to 1996, said that despite the value of the Life logo and the quality of the content, it was “a constantly unprofitable magazine” throughout history.

Also: run as a passion project/vanity thing for small-time millionaire and supermodel Karlie Kloss. Ruins Den's billionaire trend? No: husband is a multibillionaire. Funzies.

Also, importantly: NOT littered with ads. (Makes sense, since ad revenue isn't bankrolling them ANYWAY)

The issue will come out on Nov. 23 as a large-format, 250-page print magazine retailing for $45, combining news photography with long-form journalism. There are no traditional print ads; instead the first issue is sponsored by Rivian and Figma.

says Wikipedia for why it closed its doors 25 years ago:

THIRD: Works in Progress.

Been seeing this a lot in my feed in recent weeks. (I imagine the algos heavily favor something you've visited/searched for recently) #1591235, #1598977, #1601320

No slop, craft in making beautiful things -- and important content.

The entire project is bankrolled by Stripe // Stripe Publishing and ultimate theirowners, Patrick and John Collison et al.

It's very interesting to see this semi-/fake-capitalistic development, with art and storytelling and journalism be portrayed and worked on passionately by REAL and SERIOUS people, that looks and behaves like any other capitalist enterprise -- just won't be profit-oriented or ever aspire to making a profit.

They're in it for the tech...

or rather, the humanity of it. The changing society. The craft and beauty and deep meaning.

I live this trend. And apparently, sic semper salvatores:

All successful journalistic efforts were similarly "bankrolled by wealthy eccentrics"?

Yeah, I dunno. But what did the rich ever do for us?!

The recent anti-billionaire campaigns channeled their energy incorrectly. It's not that the "rich" need to finance failing programs like Medicare, or fat, lazy Californians' health problems. They should just build shit, bankroll artists, be _patrons_ to us creative peeps... and churches and architecture and all the other beautiful things in human/western civ.

"patronage is “the tribute which opulence owes to genius.” --Edmund Burke

If you were wealthy, it was your moral obligation to give back to the community – not merely by improving the lot of the poor or renovating your local church but also by supporting artists and intellectuals.

Interesting future ahead of us. Huuuuge if true.