[gdwatson]

The attitude this piece bemoans is something that used to be widespread in Internet culture, and I am sad to see it dying out.

I suppose the goal to make a freer world out of the Internet was always destined be lost. The battle against the Clipper chip was a huge victory for that culture and the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA were a huge loss. But it was a loss the culture was conscious of, a bid by outside forces to keep it from getting "too big for its britches."

Now it feels like that culture has been entirely swallowed up. Google/YouTube/Twitter/Facebook are beholden to advertising dollars and their internal speech mores look, from outside Silicon Valley, to be indistinguishable from other circles of their location and social class.