The Raspberry Pi was supposed to encourage schoolkids in the UK and elsewhere to take an interest in technology beyond what regular IT classes were teaching - basically how to use MS Office. The idea was to give these kids a cheap computer a little closer to the silicon bones where they could learn to program and build things, not just hit a run button.
I am going somewhere with this.
Napster was easy. Limewire was easy. By the time we get to torrents, you’re starting to have to be a bit more discriminating, a bit smarter about what you’re doing. Sure, every time the “Feds” shut down or thoroughly compromise Web skullduggery, something else springs up to replace it but what replaces it does tend to get that little bit more complicated.
So, in a way it’s law enforcement that’s driving tech education amongst the young and the real reason that we never saw an explosion of bedroom coders when computers became ubiquitous is because most of them are devoting their spare time to figuring out the cutting edge way to rip off the latest Bob Dylan track, or whatever it is that the kids are listening to on their Walkmen.
