326: The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires by Tim Wu

The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires by Tim Wu

Have you ever watched a video clip on YouTube? How about Hulu? What if your Internet provider allowed you access to one, but not the other? Net neutrality is the idea that your ISP allows you access to all the Internet has to offer. Without net neutrality your ISP will be able to pick and choose what you can access on the Internet. Without net neutrality the Internet becomes more like cable television.

Right now that seems unlikely, but in The Master Switch Tim Wu shows how media throughout the 20th century started out as relatively open platforms, only to end up controlled by corporate masters.

"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 with the next industrial consolidation? Could the Internet -- the entire flow of American information -- come to be ruled by one corporate leviathan in possession of "the master switch"? That is the big question of Tim Wu's pathbreaking book. As Wu's sweeping history shows, each of the new media of the twentieth century -- radio, telephone, television, and film -- was born free and open. Each invited unrestricted use and enterprising experiment until some would-be mogul battled his way to total domination."

Why this is progressive/liberal: One of the big debates between progressives and conservatives is the need for net neutrality. For the most part liberals and progressives argue that we need laws to ensure the Internet stays an open platform. Net neutrality is what we have today, and progressives think we need legislation to keep it that way. This book, and the one by Zittrain provide the arguments for keeping an open Internet.

Buy the Kindle version: The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires (Borzoi Books)



An excellent companion piece to this is Jonathan Zittrain's The Future of the Internet--And How to Stop It.

Buy the Kindle version: The Future of the Internet--And How to Stop It by Jonathan Zittrain