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FREE THE MASTER SWITCH: THE RISE AND FALL OF INFORMATION EMPIRES PDF Tim Wu | 368 pages | 29 Nov 2011 | Vintage Books | 9780307390998 | English | New York, NY, United States The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires by Tim Wu, Paperback | Barnes & Noble® Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read. Want to Read saving…. Want to Read Currently Reading Read. Other editions. Enlarge cover. Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Open Preview See a Problem? Details if other :. Thanks for telling us about the problem. Return to Book Page. In this age of an open Internet, it is easy to forget that every American information industry, beginning with the telephone, has eventually been taken captive by some ruthless monopoly or cartel. With all our media now traveling a single network, an unprecedented potential is building for centralized control over what Americans see and hear. Could history repeat itself wi In this age of an open Internet, it is easy to forget that every American information industry, beginning with the telephone, has eventually been taken captive by some ruthless monopoly or cartel. Could history repeat itself with the next industrial consolidation? Each invited unrestricted use and enterprising experiment until some would-be mogul battled his way to total domination. Here are stories of an uncommon will to power, the power over information: Adolph Zukor, who took a technology once used as commonly as YouTube is today and made it the exclusive prerogative of a kingdom called Hollywood. And foremost, Theodore Vail, founder of the Bell System, the greatest information empire of all time, and a capitalist whose faith in Soviet-style central planning set the course of every information industry thereafter. Get A Copy. Hardcoverpages. Published November 2nd by Knopf first published More Details Original Title. Other Editions Friend Reviews. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about The Master Switchplease sign up. Lists with This Book. Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 3. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. I learned a tonne writing it. View all 4 comments. Nov 22, Mario the lone bookwolf rated it really liked it Shelves: wu-tim0-internet0-technology. I believed in the power and existence of the master switch long before the publishing of this book, because many future timelines by many famous Sci-Fi authors point in this direction and because it is a logical and to a certain extent necessary step for both government and industry. We are not at the end of history, but probably at the end of new ways to control the information highways. Augmented reality, virtual reality and invasive techniques to participate better and more efficient all won I believed in the power and existence of the master switch long before the publishing of this book, because many future timelines by many famous Sci-Fi authors point in this direction and because it is a logical and to a certain extent necessary step for both government and industry. There will be standards and competitors and the best product will be used by most customers. One can argue if it is good or bad if all this power lies in the hands of a few people, but in a democratic state the control of all content to avoid extremism up to a dictatorship is something simply necessary and the line between too much and too less censorship is so thin and difficult to draw that it may be good that machines will do the job. Probably they are more objective and less prone do party principles and so the endless circle of corruption between lobbyists, government and dominating industries will go on forever even more efficient. Former industries fell because they are, compared to today's standard, inflexible and unilateral, not so say boring. Just radio, just a rigid TV program, just an offline PC game, come on. Not as if TV- and radio stations, news corporations, etc. Even if they would really want to, they would have to cannibalize themselves, because their push media program without active user participation is oldfashioned. If they would change, the whole subvention circle and political interests in official, state-owned propaganda stations would collapse and the information monopoly would have to be reconsidered. They would have to allow active evaluation by users and let people produce critical, true content, to them better-known as fake news. Pest or cholera, they lose whatever they do. And there are antitrust laws, the youth has the best potential to connect and act together, old ideas become more and more ridiculous and pathetic and the human participation in important decisions becomes less and less. And for me, as a friendly technocratic science adorer, this ist the most important point. Sure there are some ideas to democratize the whole internet, open-source, sharing economy, creative commons, etc. But a national and global standard, infrastructure and supervisory authority will always be needed to let the whole system run and fix problems. I am a proponent of democratic and social innovations and a fairer economic system, but I also see the importance of a master administrator with different kill switches. And one must be realistic, each free and great idea gets commercialized in a certain amount of time and the only viable option is to make the best compromise between civil society and big money. Net neutrality and transparency must be prioritized with the help of techniques like open government and blockchain technology or the worst possible moloch, as seen in China, may arise. View all 5 comments. Nov 02, Elaine Nelson rated it it was amazing Shelves: economicshistoryfavoritesnon-fictionpoliticstechnology. As with Nothing to Envy, I should have written this review right after reading the book. It was fantastic, and I'd like to read it again. Great history of the "Information Empires" of the 20th and early 21st century, the continuing tension between openness and control. It seemed to me that Facebook or its moral equivalents are The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires elephant in the room in that discussion. The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires highly recommended. I liked them because they brought out the fundamental patterns that underlie the evolution and behaviour of humans The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires the system of the world respectively. The Master Switch does the same with communication and information empires. It then shifts to industrial scale, predictable outputs, and controlled by a corporation which then decides to make it a closed system. He calls this the Cycle. The author's contention is that all information businesses go through the cycle. The question he seeks to answer is "which is mightier : the radicalism of the Internet or the inevitability of the Cycle? The story begins in the s, when Alexander Graham Bell's small telephone company goes up against the The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires of the times - Western Union. Will get to that in a bit. It is not just the magnificent scope that makes the book interesting. The author retells history in the mould of a thriller! There are anecdotes and not so trivia that make the book really engaging. Multiple inventors of the same technology and uncredited firststowering personalities from JP Morgan to Steve Jobs who left a firm imprint, fascinating origin stories of movie studios like Universal and Warner that are now household names and how movie making is now less to do with the movie and more to do with the business of the franchise a movie is a 2 hour advertisement of an intellectual property which makes money through a franchise that sells everything from tshirts to DVDs to theme parkscompanies that rise The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires like phoenixes in revenge arcs that span a century GE buying Universal! The author obviously does not give a definitive answer to whether The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires Internet will beat the Cycle. The nuance he highlights is that the monopoly actually begins and even continues with noble intentions and utopian values, but loses the plot subsequently. The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires like "you either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain. A fantastic read on multiple counts! The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires 06, Mehrsa rated it it was amazing. I started this a while back, got half way, and then moved on to his other books. So I started it again and read it all the way through and I'm so glad I did. It's just as relevant now as when it was written. View 1 comment. Nov 05, Irina slutsky is currently reading it. Most recently Google and Verizon were the two giants rumored to have a plan to let users pay for faster access. Wu has testified on numerous occasions -- has put the question of network neutrality on hold until after the midterm elections. Ad Age spoke to Mr. Wu a few days before his official book tour and asked him to frame the history of those empires in terms of advertising and, of course, Facebook. Wu: Historically, the major resistance to monopoly comes from high prices. But if you have a monopoly supported by advertising, the price isn't noticed by consumers because the price is distributed. Consumers pay for Google through everything being a bit more expensive. If I type "dentist" in Google, and click through to a Google link, the price comes back to me when I pay the dentist.
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