The Digital Barbed Wire: Why Patreon is Active-Blocking AI Scrapers

In 1874, an inventor named Joseph Glidden patented a simple twist of steel wire with sharp barbs. Before its arrival, the American West operated on the assumption of an infinite open range, where cattle grazed wherever grass grew. Within a decade, those cheap, spiked strands partitioned millions of acres, transforming a shared wilderness into private assets. We are currently witnessing the digital equivalent of that enclosure movement, and its first major fence line is the polite convention known as