Baseball cards have basically turned into precious metals, according to Noah Schachtman. Now Topps will just lock them in a vault, and people can trade them online in an eBay style market.
Hunch. For this online community, a segment has devoted itself to impartially reporting on transactions, trends, and troubles. In short a free press probably emerged.
Hypothesis, any collection of media artifacts can cohere a community in which a free press will/must emerge.