Research notes
Blank is not zero: a contract, not a preference
Research note · MethodChecked Oct 23, 2026
Membership fees are the most common place a blank gets read as free. The difference between null and 0 is the difference between an unknown charge and a published one.
In the record, null means not established and 0 means genuinely zero. The two render differently, they are recorded as different things, and they mean different things to a buyer. A published $0 is a fact about the program. A blank is a fact about our research.
This is why the ledger shows an explicit $0 next to a membership and an italic not established next to a blank one. Collapsing them would make the table easier to read and the publication less honest.