The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires
Author: Tim Wu (Atlantic Books)
Format: Paperback
Number of Pages: 384
It is easy to forget that every development in the history of the information industry - from the telephone to radio to film - once existed in an open and chaotic marketplace inhabited by entrepreneurs and utopians, just as the Internet does today. Each of these, however, grew to be dominated by a monopolist or cartel. In this pathbreaking book, Tim Wu asks: will the Internet follow the same fate? Could the Web - the entire flow of information - come to be ruled by a corporate leviathan in possession of 'the master switch'? Analyzing the strategic maneuvers of today's great information powers - Apple, Google, and an eerily resurgent AT+T - Wu uncovers a time-honored pattern in which invention begets industry and industry begets empire. He shows how a battle royale for the Internet's future is brewing, and this is one war we dare not tune out.
Format: Paperback
Number of Pages: 384
It is easy to forget that every development in the history of the information industry - from the telephone to radio to film - once existed in an open and chaotic marketplace inhabited by entrepreneurs and utopians, just as the Internet does today. Each of these, however, grew to be dominated by a monopolist or cartel. In this pathbreaking book, Tim Wu asks: will the Internet follow the same fate? Could the Web - the entire flow of information - come to be ruled by a corporate leviathan in possession of 'the master switch'? Analyzing the strategic maneuvers of today's great information powers - Apple, Google, and an eerily resurgent AT+T - Wu uncovers a time-honored pattern in which invention begets industry and industry begets empire. He shows how a battle royale for the Internet's future is brewing, and this is one war we dare not tune out.
Description
Author: Tim Wu (Atlantic Books)
Format: Paperback
Number of Pages: 384
It is easy to forget that every development in the history of the information industry - from the telephone to radio to film - once existed in an open and chaotic marketplace inhabited by entrepreneurs and utopians, just as the Internet does today. Each of these, however, grew to be dominated by a monopolist or cartel. In this pathbreaking book, Tim Wu asks: will the Internet follow the same fate? Could the Web - the entire flow of information - come to be ruled by a corporate leviathan in possession of 'the master switch'? Analyzing the strategic maneuvers of today's great information powers - Apple, Google, and an eerily resurgent AT+T - Wu uncovers a time-honored pattern in which invention begets industry and industry begets empire. He shows how a battle royale for the Internet's future is brewing, and this is one war we dare not tune out.
Format: Paperback
Number of Pages: 384
It is easy to forget that every development in the history of the information industry - from the telephone to radio to film - once existed in an open and chaotic marketplace inhabited by entrepreneurs and utopians, just as the Internet does today. Each of these, however, grew to be dominated by a monopolist or cartel. In this pathbreaking book, Tim Wu asks: will the Internet follow the same fate? Could the Web - the entire flow of information - come to be ruled by a corporate leviathan in possession of 'the master switch'? Analyzing the strategic maneuvers of today's great information powers - Apple, Google, and an eerily resurgent AT+T - Wu uncovers a time-honored pattern in which invention begets industry and industry begets empire. He shows how a battle royale for the Internet's future is brewing, and this is one war we dare not tune out.
The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires