The Master Switch The Rise and Fall of Information Empires |
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Author:
| Wu, Tim |
Read by:
| Vietor, Marc |
ISBN: | 978-1-5012-6436-8 |
Publication Date: | Jun 2015 |
Publisher: | Brilliance Publishing, Inc.
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Book Format: | CD-Audio |
List Price: | USD $14.99 |
Book Description:
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It is easy to forget that every development in the history of the American 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 path-breaking audiobook, Tim Wu asks: will the Internet follow the same fate? Could the Web--the entire flow of American information--come to be ruled...
More Description
It is easy to forget that every development in the history of the American 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 path-breaking audiobook, Tim Wu asks: will the Internet follow the same fate? Could the Web--the entire flow of American 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 royal for the Internet's future is brewing, and this is one war we dare not tune out.
"Fascinating, balanced, and rigorous--a tour de force." --The New York Review of Books
"Entertaining.... There's a sharp insight and a surprising fact on nearly every page of Wu's masterful survey." --The Boston Globe