Regardless of my feelings about his ideology, Doctorow is not a very good writer.
I always bring him up in this posts in sort of a superstitious attempt to ward off any further mention of him, because the position he tends to occupy in IP debates is a silly one. People often attach a moral weight to his behavior which I do not think is deserved. If giving away your work for free online is a sound business decision rather than an altruistic act - as the evidence suggests - then Doctorow doesn't deserve cookies for doing so. The man is in a position to buy his own cookies. But if it's generosity rather than good business, and he thus does deserve cookies, then he's some kind of mad sage wandering in the desert collecting disciples. And while I have no quarrel with the profession, 1) nobody should really be taking his advice on financial matters, and 2) I expect more inspiring verbiage out of him. It's sort of a Catch-22.
Also, there are a lot of people on the internet who give away their work for free. Some of them are called "fanfiction writers," and many of those are much better than Doctorow.
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I always bring him up in this posts in sort of a superstitious attempt to ward off any further mention of him, because the position he tends to occupy in IP debates is a silly one. People often attach a moral weight to his behavior which I do not think is deserved. If giving away your work for free online is a sound business decision rather than an altruistic act - as the evidence suggests - then Doctorow doesn't deserve cookies for doing so. The man is in a position to buy his own cookies. But if it's generosity rather than good business, and he thus does deserve cookies, then he's some kind of mad sage wandering in the desert collecting disciples. And while I have no quarrel with the profession, 1) nobody should really be taking his advice on financial matters, and 2) I expect more inspiring verbiage out of him. It's sort of a Catch-22.
Also, there are a lot of people on the internet who give away their work for free. Some of them are called "fanfiction writers," and many of those are much better than Doctorow.