I've changed my view radically on mass piracy since what I believed in my youth, and I no longer agree with or have any sympathy with it.
In the information age, most valuable labor is increasingly the creation of information. "Information wants to be free" means "labor wants to be free." In other words "I want other people's labor to be free," or "gimme free stuff and I don't care if anyone else can make a living."
Then there is the effect of everything being free. In the Internet media world it helped lead to surveillance capitalism, since that's the only viable business model. Another viable model is propaganda. So if you want more of those things, by all means undermine simple overt non-sketchy paid business models.
In the information age, most valuable labor is increasingly the creation of information. "Information wants to be free" means "labor wants to be free." In other words "I want other people's labor to be free," or "gimme free stuff and I don't care if anyone else can make a living."
Then there is the effect of everything being free. In the Internet media world it helped lead to surveillance capitalism, since that's the only viable business model. Another viable model is propaganda. So if you want more of those things, by all means undermine simple overt non-sketchy paid business models.