In our current world, most things have fallen victim to the system of capitalism, especially knowledge. I understand that research has to be funded in some way. However, as was mentioned in the video, research that was funded by taxpayers is still not free to the public and is behind paywalls. Besides, the profit that is made mostly does not go to the research, but to other companies profiting off the articles. What I think was even more disappointing is that legal documents were not accessible to everyone, as it is a legal right and the basis of democracy.
Therefore it is a good thing that Aaron challenged this system of gatekeeping knowledge, by analysing it, downloading it and making it accessible for the people. It is sad that the government treated him like a criminal, for simply trying to improve things around him that were obviously wrong.
The accomplishments of Aaron Swartz and his view on life are very inspirational. With his ability to learn he could have thrived inside the system and lived a comfortable life, but instead he decided to challenge that flawed system. It is a shame that someone with so much potential and so many great ideas was seen as a threat, instead of a wake-up call, by the government, eventually resulting in his suicide.
Tim Berners-Lee was shortly mentioned in the video as the founder of the World Wide Web, who thought it was more important to make it accessible than to profit from it. It is sad to see that even though the basics of the internet were good, there are more and more companies trying to find a way to profit, instead of trying to improve it while keeping it accessible, like Tim Berners-Lee did.
Overall I think we should be thankfull for Aaron for pointing out and trying to solve the problems surrounding the access to knowledge.