Currently people are still free to write and publish without paying rent to a patent holder. I don't think ycombinator, for example, is yet paying anyone other than their host/ISP to run this site. But you know someone is going to patent blogs, and web pages in general, they're gold nuggets just waiting to be picked up off the ground.
We here are more aware of it because it's affecting us first. That the general public hasn't been directly affected and probably isn't really aware of what's happening also shows that it's only the beginning.
Food is still free, as in libre. Anyone is free to raise their own chickens, vegetables and goats, notwithstanding zoning laws, and to trade seeds and stud services. Monsanto and their ilk are working hard to push self-reproducing seeds out of the food chain, and blanket the earth with Roundup so that only Roundup ready plants will live. I'm assuming animals, via cloning and mules, are in our near future.
