[torben-friis]

>Because we could read/listen to/watch stuff without paying the people who created it?

I can tell you I wouldn’t be anywhere close to where I am without this, yes.

First because I (/my parents) didn’t have the money, second because of pure geographical access.

I saw movies and shows from countries that would never sell near me, read books that would never be in my country’s libraries, took courses straight from scientists and engineers rather than a thrice translated work…

The barrier of entry was also useful, curiosity is much better fed when you can download a medicine textbook just to check rather than venturing into the library of a university you’re not part of.

That is the one thing the internet did right, spreading culture. It was over when they took boredom from us, that was the big evil.

[anthk]

Ditto here in Spain. If you were able to watch Northern Exposure or The X Files with the Spanish dub in the 90's with a normal TV schedule (read: with human schedules, you need to sleep), I would ask you a unicorn just in case, because I woudn't believe you. After 2003 with Emule and BT? Damn it, I've got whole NE series over torrent and I regret nil.

My public TV already paid the US TV producer with money from our taxes, so in the end it's a draw.

Programming books? Your elder brother/sister it's doing CS at some uni, right? Then, good luck paying $50 on big book stores from malls. Entry courses you mean? Pay ~$50 a month for a private school and try enjoying Visual C++ 98. Linux? That's was for CS engineers and PC freaks right?

Nowadays you can learn damn Calculus on your own and install Maxima from any distro with online guides and tutorials. I had to learn Calculus from my own (I was some HS dropout) early Debian DVD's which had a PDF on Mathematics and from that I tried to understand every exercise and equation under Maxima. No upgrades, no updates, no tutoring. Hard mode my default for everything. Your TV tuner didn't work? Messing with Linux kernel modules like crazy and even editing the source code to fake the tuner and PLL and watch something in XawTV.