‘Information wants to be free.’ It’s time we bury the phrase forever

Photo by camilo jimenez on Unsplash

“Information wants to be free.”

The phrase has become the rallying cry of the internet industry. It’s also overstayed its welcome and needs to die.

These famous words were coined in 1984 by American writer Stewart Brand, but their meaning has been warped over time.

Here is the phrase, placed in its full context:

On the one hand, information wants to be expensive because it’s so valuable. The right information in the right place just changes your life. On the other hand, information wants to be free because the cost of getting it out is getting lower and lower all the time. So you have these two fighting against each other.

What started out as an astute observation soon became a religious mantra for the tech faithful.

It’s unsurprising that people remember the “free” part of the spiel. No one likes expensive things. No one likes parting with their hard-earned money.

And so the meme spread. The internet gave us many free things, wonderful things. It spawned the open-source software movement. It gave us Google, Facebook, and Instagram.

But “free” is an illusion.

The open-source movement is great. But its proponents still need to make a living.

Those “free” services I spoke of? They’re mining you for data and flooding your screens with ads.

“Free” has spawned the unethical tech idols that we used to worship.