I enjoy how references to The Diamond Age are becoming more and more common in tech beloved by the hacker community. Increases my excitement for the future! I want my matter compiler already.
It's interesting to reread The Diamond Age in the context of the recent fights over IP. When manufacturing is almost free, what gives one object value over another? Its design and software--the IP. In TDA, stealing IP was how smaller organizations competed with and disrupted larger more established ones. No organization in the world is larger and more established than the U.S.--hence the increasingly strong efforts of the U.S. government to defend IP.
