> When it became cheaper to publish text did the quality go up?

Obviously, yes? Maybe not the median or even mean, but peak quality for sure. If you know where to look there are more high-quality takes available now than ever before. (And perhaps more meaningfully, peak quality within your niche subgenre is better than ever).

> When it became cheaper to make games did the quality go up?

Yes? The quality and variety of indie games is amazing these days.

> When it became cheaper to mass produce X (sneakers, tshirts, anything really) did the quality go up?

This is the case where I don’t see a win, and I think it bears further thought; I don’t have a clear explanation. But I note this is the one case where production is not actually democratized. So it kinda doesn’t fit with the digital goods we are discussing.

> basically nobody can make a living with focusing on publishing news or articles

Is this actually true? Substack enables more independent career bloggers than ever before. I would love to see the numbers on professional indie devs. I agree these are very competitive fields, and an individual’s chances of winning are slim, but I suspect there are more professional indie creators than ever before.