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Jayson_Virissimo comments on Individual vs. Group Epistemic Rationality - Less Wrong
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A "public good" is not a Boolean kind of thing. There are degrees of excludability and rivalrousness. Some goods become more or less excludable over time and so may or may not be a public good at any given point. Some scientific knowledge is a public good and some of it isn't, but probably will be in the near future.
Yes, degrees of rivalrousness and excludability exist on a continuum, but that's irrelevant here. Scientific knowledge isn't nonexcludable.
Let's be precise with our language. Scientific knowledge is produced in respected, formal, peer-reviewed journals. Such journals charge for access to that knowledge. We shouldn't be sloppy with how we define scientific knowledge; there is a lot of knowledge about science, that's not the same thing as scientific knowledge, which is produced by a specific, formal, institutional process.
I reckon it is public good anyway, insofar as public libraries are public. In fact, you can most probably access many of those journals for free at your nearest public library, even if not necessarily by direct web access, but by requesting a copy from the librarian.
EDIT: Of course if you want convenience, you have to pay. (Perhaps) luckily enough people and institutions are willing to.
Right, so a "public" library is a good example of a good that is provided publicly, but has little economic justification as such. A "public" good is technically specific in economics, and refers to something more narrow than what is used in everyday language.
A book is excludable, even if somewhat nonrivalrous. It's rivalrous in the sense that it can't be checked out to multiple people at once, but nonrivalrous in the sense that a book in a library can be consumed by many more people than a book kept on a shelf in someone's private home, over an extended period of time.
A library could operate without positive external effects with a subscription model.