Do you pay for computer hardware and accessories? Do you pay for ISP for an internet connection? Do you pay Microsoft for Windows? Do you pay for a dropbox account? Do you pay for movies and digital media? Do you pay for books?

Why are books (and probably movies) the only one you don't pay for?

Information is not free, information requires 24/7 elecricity to be pumped through thousands of internet connected computers, manned by thousands of engineers keeping the whole thing working. The information requires thousands of writers/coders to be created.

It is a peak luxury to sit back in a Herman Miller Aeron chair in a tech company, sipping lattes and say something like 'information should be free' while millions of people are working to keep the whole charade that 10101 (binary code rising out of electricity) actually means something legible to human eyeballs at all.

Writers are just another brick in the wall, another link in the chain. Pay them like we pay everything else, that fits.