it is hard to convey to people how much of our modern world are cultural beliefs and how much it's shifted. So much is commerce and IP now. it's horrible.
I openly gave a talk in my primary school pre-1992 (when we moved) about overcoming copy protections. no one thought i was doing anything wrong. I believe i connected to the internet from our home in AUS sometime around 1994 (when we moved again) or earlier. I can time it because a mortified little me had to find a way to dispose of a picture of a topless lady i accidentally printed out and i rode all the way down to the local shops to throw out in the bin before we moved. I never realised how cutting edge my father was to get us a home connection at the time.
But anyway i digress. back then it was HOPE that this technology would result in free sharing of art and knowledge that everyone wanted to place online at their own expense. Now it's fear that it will cut people out of commercialisation. Such a depressing dystopia we live in, and such a horrible shift as the Web (and subsequently all our societies) were gradually taken over by commercial culture :(
i can't overstress how important that early internet connection was to me as a child growing up in Australia...