Quantity has a quality of its own. To use a similar example, arrest and imprisonment records are public data in my country. But you have to actually go to the

Quantity has a quality of its own. To use a similar example, arrest and imprisonment records are public data in my country. But you have to actually go to the courthouse and fill out some paperwork and/or hire a lawyer to do it for you. This has consequences. For example, in some US states it takes a few seconds for an employer to find out a candidate was once arrested while drunk, or has a conviction for a minor offense from 15 years ago. And employers do that sort of search routinely, because it's free and easy. Only someone being targeted for a specific background check gets that treatment here, because it's not so easy. Same argument applies to, for example, reading the previous divorce case for someone you're dating. Only a real weirdo would do that here, in part because it involves time and money. If it's freely available online, I do think it would be a lot more common. I don't know whether it'd be better or worse to have such information more accessible, but it can change things.