I saw someone recently talking about the cultural harms done by the expectation that everything online should be no-cost, which, fine; but then they dragged early nerd slogan "information wants to be free" into it, and fuck me, American computer dorks' sloppy quasimysticism and overuse of the word "free" have done such fucking damage to people's ability to communicate online?
"Information wants to be free" is a quasimystical restatement of the (naïve) assertion that "the internet treats censorship as damage to route around", which is also not actually talking about the internet; these are assertions about people. They are assertions about peoples' social desire to share things.
When you read a cool book, turn to a friend and say, "You'd like this, read my copy," (as opposed to, "Buy a copy yourself!") that's their 'information wanting to be free': it's actually the assertion that people, presented with Stuff deliberately paywalled or otherwise withheld, will tend to spread it around where possible, rather than simply acquiesce. (Cf. torrents, etc.) It's that people want to free information, not Muh No-Cost Everything.
(I mean, those certainly have a relationship. But the sloganeering referred to the former!)
In conclusion: fucking nerds
