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yates9's review against another edition
5.0
Lanier summons pointed criticism to the technological optimist phylosophy that permeates digital startups and established digital business alike. His critique is not well organised but is still a relatively unique perspective which one needs to consider for futurology.
I rate the book less for its overall quality but for those key thinking points which should be evaluated while we look at technological and cultural development. Its a book I find myself arguing against but these arguments lead me to understand the issues.
I rate the book less for its overall quality but for those key thinking points which should be evaluated while we look at technological and cultural development. Its a book I find myself arguing against but these arguments lead me to understand the issues.
colorfulleo92's review against another edition
3.0
Interesting topic but had a hard time grasping the content and making it stick. Might been my current head space but didn't feel like the book had "sticky" information. What I mean is, those kind of facts that I go around thinking about after putting the book down had remember well after finishing it. Bit the concept was very intriguing
dlrcope's review against another edition
4.0
I found this book to be pretty dry, requiring some discipline to complete (and that was just listening to the audiobook, which is faster than reading for me.) It was worth it though. The situation he describes here is very familiar to me and probably to you too, our changing digital world, but the conclusions he draws, the patterns he defines, those were not as clear. I agreed with some, but not all of what he said, but that's not really the point. The point is to think it through yourself; and Lanier's ideas advanced my thinking. I recommend this book to anyone who's trying to understand what's happening in our economy, especially with employment, money and power.
This quote gives you a feel for what the books is going to discuss, "Here’s a current example of the challenge we face. At the height of its power, the photography company Kodak employed more than 140,000 people and was worth $28 billion. They even invented the first digital camera. But today Kodak is bankrupt, and the new face of digital photography has become Instagram. When Instagram was sold to Facebook for a billion dollars in 2012, it employed only thirteen people. Where did all those jobs disappear to? And what happened to the wealth that those middle-class jobs created? This book is built to answer questions like these, which will only become more common as digital networking hollows out every industry, from media to medicine to manufacturing.”
― Jaron Lanier, Who Owns the Future?
This quote gives you a feel for what the books is going to discuss, "Here’s a current example of the challenge we face. At the height of its power, the photography company Kodak employed more than 140,000 people and was worth $28 billion. They even invented the first digital camera. But today Kodak is bankrupt, and the new face of digital photography has become Instagram. When Instagram was sold to Facebook for a billion dollars in 2012, it employed only thirteen people. Where did all those jobs disappear to? And what happened to the wealth that those middle-class jobs created? This book is built to answer questions like these, which will only become more common as digital networking hollows out every industry, from media to medicine to manufacturing.”
― Jaron Lanier, Who Owns the Future?
walshdj's review against another edition
2.0
The book never took off for me. His arguments were lost in diatribes and interludes. The premise seems to be that consumers should be paid for the data they provide. Maybe he had more to say? Hard to know after many pages.
juliana_aldous's review against another edition
5.0
I'm giving Jaron Lanier's work five stars for the fact that I must have turned down the corner on a hundred pages because the book is thought-provoking. Three stars go to the editor. This is my second review of a book where I blame the dev edit of a book. In this case I think Jaron's work could have been more concise and a hundred or so pages lopped off and nothing would have been lost. I blame the loss of that editor on exactly what Jaron writes about in his book--the loss of a middle class due to our new masters the Siren Servers.
If you are a technology or publishing professional or if your job has even been touched by technology for better or for worse you should read this book. If you read Chris Anderson's book Free: How Today's Smartest Businesses Profit By Giving Something For Nothing several years ago and you thought at the time that Chris was full of cr** because you were worried that that model would destroy the middle class then read this book. (Or maybe that was just me watching him talk in a Microsoft Research author talk). If you read Tim Wu's the Master Switch and saw the brilliance in that book--there is something here for you as well. Because what Tim predicted is coming true. If you have ever wondered why Google and other Search Engines which used to be so useful seemed to be less so because you can't clear your way past the content marketing then this book is for you. If you were amazed at how twitter was used to bring us closer during events like the Oscars and the SuperBowl and yet horrified that organizations like ISIS are using it to recruit people than this book is for you.
This is a controversial but fascinating look by a brilliant mind into the state of what technology has wrought and his personal manifesto on how to fix it.
I'm not sure I fully agree with his plan--but I do think we need to start talking about what will replace our currently broken economic system in the future.
If you are a technology or publishing professional or if your job has even been touched by technology for better or for worse you should read this book. If you read Chris Anderson's book Free: How Today's Smartest Businesses Profit By Giving Something For Nothing several years ago and you thought at the time that Chris was full of cr** because you were worried that that model would destroy the middle class then read this book. (Or maybe that was just me watching him talk in a Microsoft Research author talk). If you read Tim Wu's the Master Switch and saw the brilliance in that book--there is something here for you as well. Because what Tim predicted is coming true. If you have ever wondered why Google and other Search Engines which used to be so useful seemed to be less so because you can't clear your way past the content marketing then this book is for you. If you were amazed at how twitter was used to bring us closer during events like the Oscars and the SuperBowl and yet horrified that organizations like ISIS are using it to recruit people than this book is for you.
This is a controversial but fascinating look by a brilliant mind into the state of what technology has wrought and his personal manifesto on how to fix it.
I'm not sure I fully agree with his plan--but I do think we need to start talking about what will replace our currently broken economic system in the future.
akemichan's review against another edition
2.0
Benché l'autore porti in questo libro una serie di concetti interessanti (ad esempio, il fatto che molti siti internet - goodreads incluso - campino col lavorik gratuito degli utenti) e, essendo lui stesso un programmatore che lavora nella Silicon Valley e quindi tocca con mano le cose di cui parla, il risultato è noioso e inconcludente.
Parte del problema è il suo saltare di palo in frasca nello spiegare i concetti, rendendo difficile seguire il filo di quelle che spesso sono sue elucubrazioni mentali.
E altra parte è che ho avuto difficoltà a trovare credibili o condivisibili certe sue idee (ad esempio, dare valore a un libro cartaceo più dell'ebook perché è materiale e quindi, in potenza, re-investibile, come se l'esperienza stessa del libro non meritasse il prezzo in sé).
Credo che la mia avventura con Lanier termini qui.
Parte del problema è il suo saltare di palo in frasca nello spiegare i concetti, rendendo difficile seguire il filo di quelle che spesso sono sue elucubrazioni mentali.
E altra parte è che ho avuto difficoltà a trovare credibili o condivisibili certe sue idee (ad esempio, dare valore a un libro cartaceo più dell'ebook perché è materiale e quindi, in potenza, re-investibile, come se l'esperienza stessa del libro non meritasse il prezzo in sé).
Credo che la mia avventura con Lanier termini qui.
manu_ela's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced