The problem with the arguments against the comics code, I think, is that comics sold way better while the code had more influence than now, after around 2 decades of no influence at all.
you point to parents as being the chokepoint that held back the barbarian hordes for decades, yet rest of your text actually points to a different culprit namely centralized distribution partners, no? I have no insights into how newsstand distribution business works (or worked) so only speculating here, but seems to me the issue could have been that scale economics for a long time meant that stores were supplied only by monopolistic businesses that drew only a small portion of revenues from comics and hence didn't care about ruffling feathers and carry controversial titles just to make a few marginal bucks that didn't move needle for them, and then when direct distribution gained ground that all crumbled.
can draw parallel to how advent of internet allowed content to be made and distributed to any number of super niche audiences that previously would not have been economical to serve
You write as if the availability of pornography and violent comics disapproved of by parents was a good thing. I don't think it's good even for adults. It does not make a society more virtuous. People who read those those things become worse, not better. The rest of us lose, even if they gain some pleasure-- and why do we care if they gain that kind of pleasure? That's a big problem for economics--- why do the rest of us care if someone gets pleasure from bad activities?( the old problem of the rapist's utility).
the article deals with a problem of market inefficiency (demand for a good was there but somehow it was not being served by supply), you are talking about a different problem relating to censorship/legality. As long as a good is legal it's fine in my view to try to make it available more efficiently. If enough people believe the good is actually a "bad" that should not in fact be available they can get together and try to pass a law to that effect. But taking advantage of market inefficiencies to reach a goal one doesn't have the votes to achieve by legislative means is a) undemocratic b) usually not an enduring solution and c) will cut other way just as often.
The problem with the arguments against the comics code, I think, is that comics sold way better while the code had more influence than now, after around 2 decades of no influence at all.
you point to parents as being the chokepoint that held back the barbarian hordes for decades, yet rest of your text actually points to a different culprit namely centralized distribution partners, no? I have no insights into how newsstand distribution business works (or worked) so only speculating here, but seems to me the issue could have been that scale economics for a long time meant that stores were supplied only by monopolistic businesses that drew only a small portion of revenues from comics and hence didn't care about ruffling feathers and carry controversial titles just to make a few marginal bucks that didn't move needle for them, and then when direct distribution gained ground that all crumbled.
can draw parallel to how advent of internet allowed content to be made and distributed to any number of super niche audiences that previously would not have been economical to serve
You write as if the availability of pornography and violent comics disapproved of by parents was a good thing. I don't think it's good even for adults. It does not make a society more virtuous. People who read those those things become worse, not better. The rest of us lose, even if they gain some pleasure-- and why do we care if they gain that kind of pleasure? That's a big problem for economics--- why do the rest of us care if someone gets pleasure from bad activities?( the old problem of the rapist's utility).
the article deals with a problem of market inefficiency (demand for a good was there but somehow it was not being served by supply), you are talking about a different problem relating to censorship/legality. As long as a good is legal it's fine in my view to try to make it available more efficiently. If enough people believe the good is actually a "bad" that should not in fact be available they can get together and try to pass a law to that effect. But taking advantage of market inefficiencies to reach a goal one doesn't have the votes to achieve by legislative means is a) undemocratic b) usually not an enduring solution and c) will cut other way just as often.