Twenty years ago, just as the Internet was developing into a mass medium that catered to individuals’ unique tastes and interests in unprecedented ways, critics were foolishly flipping out about “media consolidation” and how a few companies such as AOL Time Warner would control all our news and information (as if!). Now, they are more likely to worry over the loss of a common news culture and the seeming ability of people to consume only self-confirming points of view. That may seem plausible on the face of things, but it’s equally wrong.

Palin is hardly a trailblazer in launching her own channel. Her ideological confrere Glenn Beck launched The Blaze network on the web in 2011. It spread to satellite TV a year later, and claims north of 300,000 subscribers paying $9.95 for full access to tons of print, video and audio content. Elsewhere on the political spectrum, pioneering blogger Andrew Sullivan sells access to The Dish (which touts itself as “biased and balanced”) for $1.99 a month and The Young Turks offer free, basic ($10) and premium ($25) access to a wide variety of text and video. RedState, The Daily Kos, Huffington Post, PJ Media and others all offer unlimited amounts of news, commentary and community for free. Everywhere you look, there are not just more ways to access the news, but more voices entering the marketplace of ideas.

The Sarah Palin Channel will flourish only if brings something truly different and substantial to the table. The eponymous host promises her service will be “a community” and that she’s most excited about hearing directly from her audience. That’s a start (and a shift from the old-style news broadcasting), but only time will tell whether that’s enough to keep folks shelling out $10 a month for the long haul.