Reply #14: I think that's an overstatement

[Zensea]

The thousands of live shows on the internet from thousands of bands have nothing to do with the Dead unless you want to obliquely trace the development of the personal computer and the internet to a bunch of brilliant acid heads who listened to the Dead and decided to change the world. In that sense, yes, but it is really more a product of a zeitgeist that the Dead were part of, the zeigeist was not a product of the Dead.
The Dead (or I prefer the real name, The Grateful Dead) never gave their music away for free either, what they did do was allow people to make and trade tapes without suing them -- that's a bit different of a proposition. These days, once Weir (and I know there's some dispute about this) realized how extensive the internet trading of flacs had become, the whole thing got shut down, the files got yanked from the internet archive, etc.(though I know it's still around if you know where to look)
I've always been a great fan of their music and saw them quite a bit back in the day, but this idealization of them that I see in your post is really inaccurate.