The Internet we have today is because of the contribution and sacrifices of so many geniuses we don't know. One such genius was Aaron Swartz.

In 2013, 26 year old Aaron committed suicide. His crime: wanting access to academic journals made free, and not hidden behind paywalls.

Aaron was a computer genius from a very young age. He co-founded Reddit, contributed to the RSS feed format, helped in the development of the Creative Commons License, was frontrunner in the successful fight against the controversial SOPA Bill. He wanted a better Internet.

Aaron was facing a 35 year sentence for downloading academic papers from JSTOR in bulk. He was building an open library, and wanted people to get access to these research journals for free.

JSTOR btw, dropped the case against him after he returned the files. But...

The US administration didn't. They told Aaron's father, they wanted to create "an example out of him" in order to ensure there aren't more Aaron Swartz' in the future.(looking at this today, the move massively backfired.)

And that left him with no choice but to do what he did.

A computer genius was left with no other choice but to kill himself because he was facing 35 years of jail time for downloading some academic research papers. All of this because he wanted public funded research to be freely available to the public.

Read that again.

Aaron's point was proven a month after his death, when Jack Andraka, a 15 year old kid used the free academic papers to find a cure for pancreatic cancer.

Andraka used free services because "in most online databases, articles cost about $35, and there are only about 10 pages."

We all talk about blockchain, a better Internet, Web3.0, privacy and security, etc with so much pride.

We must not forget people like Aaron because of whom it was possible for us to see this day.

And so, today we're remembering Aaron Swartz. We've uploaded a documentary on Aaron's life and the way his case was handled by the US administration. Do watch it, you won't regret.

The Internet's own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz.