One final insight I'd add here, regarding innovations that make walls irrelevant: cryptocurrency may very well soon enable end-to-end networks of totally-anonym

One final insight I'd add here, regarding innovations that make walls irrelevant: cryptocurrency may very well soon enable end-to-end networks of totally-anonymous transactions and communications. This wasn't so possible before because a) the tech is really hard to do, if possible at all and b) the incentive structure is even harder. But if we can actually create communication and exchange platforms that are totally anonymous, then suddenly the whole book on copyright legislation (or any legislation) is completely unenforceable and irrelevant. Aside from tracking people directly in their homes (and best believe that's in the works), any digital work will be completely valueless from day 1 as soon as some hacker can copy it once. We have this already in a lesser extent via Bittorrent/Tor networks, but I'm talking a possibility of a considerably better user experience and wide use amongst the population. Suddenly no TV show / movie / game / invention would be worth anything anymore, because it can be copied from day one. Funding models would have to completely change to be on-demand Kickstarter/Patreon-style donation-based mechanisms rather than rental/viewer/purchase-based, since owning the rights to anything will be fairly impossible (without a totalitarian government enforcing it). Of course, if that fully anonymous economy gets created, then taxation will be pretty impossible too - nobody can even track how much you've earned. But of course, once again the weakest point - and the place where all value might aggregate - is in the physical world. Nobody can catch you online, but they sure can in reality! Digital money might be a dime a dozen, but it's hard to replicate physical goods (until we get a real life Star Trek replicator of course... James Burke, famous historian who predicted the internet, predicts that's coming in 50 years!) Oh - damn - one more paragraph caveat that I've just realized: reputation will still be worth a damn. Anonymity might become cheap and superfluous, but reliability and reputation will still be big (provable identity will be hard to fake - even if usability/technology will be instantly copyable). People/brands that are actually actively liked for their reputation alone will be valuable as attractors of funding - maybe moreso than ever before. Whew, big rant! Hope it's interesting.