It's a shame every endeavour needs to fit into a capitalism-shaped hole. There are many things that people agree are beneficial but won't be profitable.
Yeah, there are outlets for charitable non-profits, or educational publications, or just plain vanity projects (like The Nation magazine which has never turned a profit). So it's not as though you can't do something unprofitable at all.
They sold a grand total of 17,000 copies and this with original essays by noted writers. You have to sell at much higher volumes for something like this to be sustainable, as those writers and artists don't work for free.