May 9, 2026
Log off, king: the comments are revolting
The Intolerable Hypocrisy of Cyberlibertarianism
Internet freedom’s old heroes are getting dragged as commenters fight over who broke the web
TLDR: The article says the internet’s early “freedom” philosophy was always deeply hypocritical, and that fantasy helped create today’s broken online world. In the comments, readers split between cheering the takedown, defending the pre-phone past, and mocking tech’s habit of preaching freedom before running to lawyers and power.
A fiery essay on Mat Duggan’s blog is serving up a full-on internet identity crisis, and the comments are where the real sparks fly. Duggan starts with a funny, cranky trip down memory lane—paper maps, cassette tapes, and the pre-smartphone era—before turning deadly serious: the early dream of a totally free online world, he argues, was built on a fantasy. His main target is John Perry Barlow’s famous 1996 manifesto declaring the internet independent from governments, which Duggan now compares to a sovereign-citizen-style fever dream dressed up as digital idealism.
But readers were not content to simply nod along. One camp loved the takedown and came armed with receipts, dropping book recommendations like Cyberselfish to argue this anti-government, pro-tech-money mindset has poisoned the culture for decades. Another group pushed back hard, with one commenter basically saying, hold on, the old days were fine actually—no need to act like life before phones and GPS was some barbaric wasteland. And then came the extra-spicy angle: one reader argued the real scam wasn’t freedom at all, but startups using “freedom” as a temporary costume until they got rich enough to hire lobbyists and cozy up to the same government they claimed to hate.
The funniest line? Duggan’s mocking summary of old techno-utopian promises: the rich and poor would unite, democracy would bloom, and “the lamb will have a Pentium II.” Commenters seemed to agree on one thing: whatever the internet was supposed to become, this absolutely was not it.
Key Points
- •The article says the internet brought major practical benefits compared with pre-internet life, especially in navigation, communication, and access to media.
- •The author argues that the internet’s core problems were present from the beginning and were built into its ideological foundations.
- •The article presents John Perry Barlow’s 1996 “A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace” as a foundational expression of cyberlibertarian ideology in tech.
- •It states that Barlow wrote the declaration in February 1996 at Davos in response to the Telecommunications Act and distributed it by email to hundreds of people.
- •The article includes biographical context on Barlow, describing him as a Grateful Dead lyricist, Wyoming cattle rancher, and former campaign manager for Dick Cheney.