That's true. ITU-T standards (eg for ATM and OSI protocols) used to be really expensive. Buy one 8 page document for 50$, realize that this is mostly a collection of references to other documents, keep buying until you have all the information. This takes a lot of time, as the documents aren't available online. Or you go to a university library with a notebook ("making a copy is strictly forbidden"). It was a system that shut out small companies.

Or you implement IETF RfCs. There's an FTP server with all standards documents. If you have just email but no Internet yet (think uucp mail or bbs), there's a service where you can request documents to be sent to you.

Nobody ever gives the full version of that quote:

"On the one hand information wants to be expensive, because it's so valuable. The right information in the right place just changes your life. On the other hand, information wants to be free, because the cost of getting it out is getting lower and lower all the time. So you have these two fighting against each other."

Brand wasn't a naive utopian; he acutely understood the conflicts that the internet would bring about.

To save others from panicked searching, Stewart Brand still is not a naive utopian; he has not died.