Bruce Sterling's speech to the 2002 Computers, Freedom & Privacy conference, about the state of online freedom and privacy. Interesting, in a rambling and in places hubristic way.

It's the Wintel Gates OS versus Hollywood and the music industry, and as elephants fight, the grass is trampled. This is one of those *new* kinds of war, where the soldiers are perfectly safe and the *consumers* supply all the casualties. The hallowed halls of Best Buy and Circuit City are strewn with broken glass and broken promises.... The supposed explosion of digital creativity on a million websites and a thousand channels... Well, come 2002, it boils down to 95% market share by a single ruthless feudal empire! And you wonder where your excitement's gone? A thing like Linux... that isn't a competitive free-market innovation, that thing is like a slave revolt.

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