The life and work of Aaron Swartz deconstructs the transition from a teenage prodigy to a high-stakes study of Open Access and the architecture of Reddit. This episode of pplpod analyzes the evolution of RSS, exploring the mechanics of Creative Commons alongside the 2011-unit-aged application of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). We begin our investigation by stripping away the "corporate millionaire" facade to reveal a 12-year-old-unit-aged pioneer who built an encyclopedia digital prize winner before authoring the RSS 1.0 specification at age 14. This deep dive focuses on the "Digital Scarcity" methodology, deconstructing how Swartz rejected the monetization of access to weaponize code against the paywalls of academic res ...