The ease of entry into new-style Internet publishing stands in refreshingly sharp contrast to the steep requirements for launching a new periodical today.

Today, a new magazine must have a powerful new "angle" (or an equivalently hefty advertising budget, or the backing of an already "bankable" celebrity) just to make people aware of its existence.

Even if its content is primarily freelanced, independent writers have to be recruited and induced to submit their material to the new outlet rather than to more established ones.  Some minimal core staff also has to be hired. 

Additionally, distributors and jobbers have to be persuaded to carry the product if it is ever to appear on newsstands. And perhaps most important of all, advertisers have to be persuaded that enough of their target market will read the new product to make it worth their while placing the ads that financially underwrite the whole enterprise.

None of these barriers applies to new-style Internet publishing.  The rise of this medium can therefore do quite a bit to reopen communications, at the very time that high barriers to entry and corporate consolidations among the mega-media are narrowing it down.