Open Philately: A Free Philatelic Journal

Sadly, it's demonstrable that's how some people are. Case in point, just a few minutes ago over on a coin forum, someone came by and asked how they would find out about a certain coin. People pointed him to all sorts of resources, including the site's FAQ and he came back and said "I'm too lazy to do that, I just want you to tell me what I want to know!" That seems to be incredibly common these days. Maybe it's just where I'm looking, but I see that repeatedly. Nobody wants to put in any effort, they just want to be given things on a silver platter.

jossanders52: "I agree with Don that in the IT world, people expect info to be for free. How many people would use Google if they would have to pay for it. How many people would pay for Twitter (X) or Facebook or....."

In many, many cases, I believe that there is truth to the saying that if something is free, it's you that's being sold. That goes double or triple for Google, Twitter and Facebook.

Knowledge should be shared to be approved by pairs, without need of having enough money to afford to access it. Most of 'free' information is findable in a gray zone of intellectual right... And those are not military secrets, AI latest improvement or hydrogen combustion engine plans... It is philately, that can be practiced from let say 10 to 1000 y.o.!

If someone ever find a remedy for cancer, I hope there won't be no intellectual rights. Restraining knowledge is in my opinion elitism.

I think that how intellectual property gets monetized is evolving, in many areas. I believe that's a key point to be aware of here. How the author benefits, or is compensated for their creation may be different now, than what it was previously.

The music industry - if I am not mistaken, has evolved to where artists tend to make more money from giving concerts now, as opposed to selling albums. This has inverted from the 20th century era, where album sales were everything, and concert tickets were cheap. Now, the day an album is released, it is almost always available to stream on youtube, for example for free. If people want it for their iPhones or similar, they can then purchase it, but a lot of people get services like Spotify - where they pay a fee to stream a lot of stuff. The artists presumably get compensated to a small degree, but the bigger money is on concert revenue now.

A lot of this I suspect evolved from the Napster era, and people wanting to listen to music (for free). Right or wrong, it seems clear that the model has changed in this industry, and is evolving in others as well. There are some musical acts that have resisted this trend, but I believe that it has been mostly to their detriment. It keeps their name and work from being "out-there" widely seen by the general public, and, unless they are already well-known, most people won't find out about them, or be able to really appreciate their legacy of work.

Its a fast moving world, and much is changing faster than we can keep up.

Actually, it comes and goes. Black American artists at least traditionally made their money touring - the records, for which they often received virtually nothing from morally dubious companies, were more of an advert for the live performances.