Philosophical unity
Originally published 4 March 2001

Remember the heady days of the late 1990s? Back when people walked around saying things like "information wants to be free" and actually meaning them?

I know I'm going to get letters about saying this, but it always did seem like when you stripped away the layers of faux-philosophical speculation about the nature of information, the central ideological belief of a lot of those late-90s types was "we don't want to have to pay for anything." As a "content provider," in the parlance of the times, I always found the idea that artists and writers should be working for free kind of, well, menacing.

I suppose, though, I should have known it would pass.

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