“On the one hand you have—the point you’re making Woz—is that information sort of wants to be expensive because it is so valuable—the right information in the right place just changes your life. On the other hand, information almost wants to be free because the costs of getting it out is getting lower and lower all of the time. So you have these two things fighting against each other.”
I find this to be a much more intelligent formulation of the concept, as it recognizes the reasons and the tension.
We simply can’t get much of the media I like for free (gratis). That being said, it is maddening to have so much great content locked up. It feels insanely inefficient and that we produce far too much content unnecessarily.
There are probably ways to balance this better- separation of content ownership, production, and distribution; more limits on copyright length; mandatory content licensing; simplification of older content license rules…
That doesn’t mean it’s morally wrong to pay for content or put restrictions on distribution, just that optimum probably isn’t where we are.