Why can't the fans have it?

Continuities are better than starting over from scratch every ten years, but they aren't going to be able to preserve everything we like about the characters or comics in which they appeared. Instead of just creating major crisis events that wipe the slate clean, why don't the comic book writers give the Elseworld stories to the fans and allow them to write whatever stories they want under a limited license agreement? That way, passionate fans could earn money producing what would otherwise wind up in the fan fiction archives, and other fans would get to read stories from continuities long discontinued.