Today I read an article about how important affordable entertainment was to older American culture [https://prospect.org/2025/12/01/historic-reversal-of-cultural-affordability/]. It used the example that many cheap entertainments came to be referred to by their price — penny papers, the penny arcades, the nickelodeons, the dime museums. “Coinage” in the neologistic sense. These were media neither in the public domain nor open domain (which had yet to be invented). They were copyrighted. But there was a belief that the best way to broadcast entertainment was through affordable venues so that as many people and families could watch them. As in the case for Little Blue Books, price them at 5 cents but sell half a billion of them. It was entertainment for literally everyone, all classes, “public access” and not a burden to anyone. Guilt free and stress free.
This eventually culminated into free radio stations and television broadcasts over the airwaves. And then public libraries and the internet. Affordable books and movies and records and free public media were so important to entertaining the working and middle classes, that they reveled in how cheap they were. It was copyrighted but not sold at any premium. That was a fantastic culture.
But I want to emphasize the phenomenon of naming the beloved entertainment by its (associated affordable) cost. I see that today in the word “FOSS” (Free and Open Source Software). The F stands for “free.” The price is right there in the acronym – FREE! Not a nickel, not a dollar, but free. You see this elsewhere in “2 buck chuck.” The product, beloved for its affordability, gets translated into a catchy name that reflects its cost. See: the $1.50 Costco hotdog. The “dollar movie” of my childhood. 99 cent cyclone-of-the-day from Vista hamburgers here in Topeka. If something is a deal, someone will find a way to canonize its price point in its nickname. This is the ultimate compliment for any media or product.
I’m not sure if people understand that “open” has an inherent pricepoint – free, too! Perhaps we should start calling it Free and Open Educational Resources (FOER) or Free and Open Education (FOE) or Free and Open Access (FOA). The “free” isn’t going away with FOSS, so let’s learn from the success of the word FOSS and put free in front of other “open” stuff.
I use the term “open domain” to refer to both the public domain and Creative Commons works, inclusive. Perhaps I should start calling it the Free and Open Domain (FOD). Creative Commons works are free, and public domain works are free. So it’s an honest descriptor, both as in beer and as in speech.
You similar see this in “Z degrees” (zero textbook cost departmental degree curricula in uni) or “ZTC” (zero textbook cost college class). I’m realizing the best branding includes the cost, inflation be damned. “Free” is impervious to inflation.
I love Bookshop.org’s <=$4 ebook sales. I’ve picked up over fifty $2 ebooks the past year. I love these random-ass (good) books. What can we call these? “The $4 Score”?
Maybe OER (FOER?) should be called “The FOER dollar scholar.” Maybe open access should be “No Pay OA!”
Maybe I need to reflect less on rhymes (“nickelodeon” doesn’t rhyme!). But the point is obvious: Feel free to refer to the fixed cost in your name for your open, public access good. That might be both good advertising, or the entire point of “open.” What good is hearing the word “open” if you don’t know that it also means free? Let’s confuse people less. This isn’t about the nuances of copyright law in the age of the internet first and foremost, it’s about producing affordable entertainment for literally everybody! That’s a great hype train. We want affordable media, available to all classes, not just the rich who can afford a premium. Does “open” imply that it is useable and useful to the working class? Most likely not. But “Free and Open” explains it a lot better! Come for the free, stay for the open.
Ae need to embed affordability into our culture. We need to name things for the price of it at a certain point in time. Nothing makes someone want to inflate the price less than breaking the bond of “two buck” or “$1.50.” We need to emphasize the importance of affordability in America. Media shouldn’t be priced for only the elite. We have 350 million people in America. Sell 350 million copies to everyone, because they all can afford it. High to low, old to young. Let’s do less premium subscriptions, exclusive versioning, exclusive packaging, and limited editions, and more penny presses, dime museums, and free and open domain.
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