Walls

I watched a Google talk by Cory Doctorow yesterday and he made a very good comment about technology. Wherever there is a technology, there are two ways to use it. To create works using your knowledge of that technology (use wall technology to build walls) or to destroy works using your knowledge (find a weakness in the wall and break it).

Now, new businesses can be thought of as wall-builders. Their goal is to build very good walls. This has tended to be a very expensive process. The price has made these groups rare.
Initially (and for what has seemed like all of human history) we have loved these generative groups for what they did. The problem is, we've made it too easy to build walls. It's no longer very expensive to build very large walls.

No longer are we building walls to keep harmful things out or to help us in our generative activities. Now, the walls are being built to separate us from what we desire. We do not like these walls and we're employing technology to destroy them.

We have a legacy, our legal and social institutions, our government, old people. This legacy interprets these actions as astonishingly harmful and destructive. It sees all walls as good things. It will be slow to adapt.