[disintegore]

It was always a farce to begin with. Inventing scarcity where there is none because there was zero willingness to organize production around anything other than markets. It was a bad but understandably necessary move back when the printing press was invented. Centuries later, with practically instant and practically infinite reproduction of most types of information, it's pure insanity.

[thomastjeffery]

It was workable when there was a real cost associated with reproduction. Everyone knew it was arbitrary social scaffolding, but it was stable enough for society to keep it standing.

Now that scaffold has no real foundation, save for a handful of gigantic corporations holding on as tightly as they can, and punishing anyone who dares contradict them.