Information wants to be free” was a phrase bandied about during the Internet stock market bubble. Often heard in corporate boardrooms and frequently appearing in publications like the Wall Street Journal, it supposedly meant that information should be accessible and cost-free to its consumers. Well, it turns out you get what you pay for. Despite being the so-called mantra of the Internet, the concept that “information wants to be free” was never internalized by the bubble companies that promoted it. Had they told us everything we really needed to know to make an accurate assessment of their performance and future prospects, most of us wouldn’t have invested in sock monkeys.
