# Information wants to be free

By [Brandon Donnelly](https://brandondonnelly.com) · 2026-04-20

real-estate, proptech, property, tech, innovation, landglide, parcel-data, property-data, housing

---

I recently came across a real estate product called [LandGlide](https://landglide.com). It's an app that provides parcel boundaries and detailed property information for over 99% of the US population. It's also "available" in Canada, but it doesn't tell you much about properties here. In the US, you can easily access things like:

*   Owner’s name or legal entity
    
*   Mortgage balance and terms
    
*   Assessed value and tax amounts
    
*   Square footage and year built
    
*   Granular details (even down to whether the home has a fireplace)
    

The reason for this difference is that in the US, property data is generally considered public record, whereas in Canada, we have stricter privacy laws. But it's not like we make this information strictly private. We just gate it and make it more cumbersome and costly to obtain through services like [GeoWarehouse](https://www2.geowarehouse.ca).

I know that some of you will argue that it's better to "sort-of-kind-of" restrict this data from being freely displayed online. But hear me out: this philosophical data difference is an important one that hurts innovation.

In Canada, property data is monopolized and, therefore, cumbersome and expensive to access. It's an unnecessary barrier to innovation. In the US, the same kind of data has become commoditized. It's easy and cheap to access, and so the barriers to building new ideas on top of it are significantly lower.

For example, Paul Crowe, who is the CEO of a Toronto-based real estate company called [House Beat](https://housebeat.com), responded to one of my tweets by [saying](https://x.com/pcrowe/status/2045922623117267368?s=20), "For what I can get in the US for $0.15 / API call from one provider, \[it\] would cost over $18 per call in Canada, across 2-3 integrations."

What this suggests to me is that we're okay allowing some/all of this data to get out there; we'd just like it to be harder and more expensive to access. Why?

Information, as the saying goes, wants to be free, which is why I'm so bullish on blockchain technologies. Blockchains are public databases that make information widely accessible and allow anyone to innovate on top of them. As the world continues to move on-chain, we are going to see the enormous benefits that this brings.

Already, we can see what happens when you don't have or allow it.

* * *

_Cover photo by_ [_Jakub Żerdzicki_](https://unsplash.com/@jakubzerdzicki?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText) _on_ [_Unsplash_](https://unsplash.com/photos/a-cell-phone-sitting-on-top-of-a-black-table-KCGcermkzeo?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText)

---

*Originally published on [Brandon Donnelly](https://brandondonnelly.com/information-wants-to-be-free-1)*