London, circa 1830. Nobody is saying you have to work 70 hours weeks in a cotton factory. You can grow your own cotton, feel free to process it any way you want! As long as the attention market concentrates in the hands of a handful of megacorporations by virtue of economies of scale, the freedom you talk about is not very tangible.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_in_Great_Britain_during_t...