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howardgo's review
hopeful
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
4.0
I picked this book up as a follow-up to The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. While that book is a detailed look at how we got to Big Tech and what to do about it, this book focuses on culture. It covers creative arts industries like book publishing, music, news, movies, video games, and live performances.
The first part of the book outlines how culture got in its current state where artists are beholden to Big Tech. Each chapter covers a different aspect of culture (i.e. books, music, live events, etc.). Part two covers the authors' proposed solutions to the issues outlined in the first part. These chapters are short and focus more on collective action than steps that individual artists can take.
This book is an excellent look at the problems Big Tech presents to artists and how artists can act collectively in response. It is a good companion to The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, especially if you are an artist or someone looking for a quick view on cultural issues in our digital world.
My rating: 4/5
My rating: 4/5
mandyfreddy's review against another edition
Dry narrators with no inflection are killing me lately lol
amber_lea84's review against another edition
4.0
This book is divided into two parts. The first part does a really excellent job of explaining where we are and how we got here. The second part is more about solutions and what we could do to fix the problem and that part is uhh, a combination of obvious solutions (Oh wow, unionize? Why didn't I think of that), solutions I'm not entirely sure I understand, and solutions that sound great but how do you even begin to bridge the gap between where we are and where we would have to get to make them happen? Like the first half feels like it's written by people who really understand the problem and the second half you can tell there are gaps in the authors' understanding of how the world works.
I would absolutely recommend this book, but just know the solutions part is kind of a let down. I wish that part had been shorter and they'd just spend more time telling us about how even more companies managed to get a stranglehold on profits. I feel like understanding how they've done it is half the battle. You can't fight a problem you don't understand.
I would absolutely recommend this book, but just know the solutions part is kind of a let down. I wish that part had been shorter and they'd just spend more time telling us about how even more companies managed to get a stranglehold on profits. I feel like understanding how they've done it is half the battle. You can't fight a problem you don't understand.
hendrixpants's review against another edition
challenging
hopeful
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
5.0
bootman's review against another edition
5.0
I’ve been creating content on YouTube as well as self-publishing books for years now, and this is a must-read book for anyone who is a creative entrepreneur. Doctorow and Giblin did such an amazing job with this book taking the reader behind the curtain to show how all of the major platforms like Amazon, Spotify, Audible, YouTube and others create a “chokepoint” that screws over creators. I knew about a lot of what the book discussed, but I had no clue about a lot of it.
This is also an important book for those who are consumers of content. If you want to support the creatives you love, whether they’re YouTubers, writers or musicians, you need to understand how they’re being taken advantage of. This world doesn’t have nearly as many creators as there could be due to the fact that these platforms are screwing them. There are also other chokepoints like DRM that make the experience terrible for consumers as well by locking them into platforms.
Giblin and Doctorow also offer a ton of great solutions in this book. If I was forced to have a criticism of this book, I think it would have done better by discussing more stories about how this affects individual creatives. For example, the story about Audible’s return policy was great, but I really don’t care about multi-billion dollar companies like Epic Games losing money from Apple. Sections like would have been better if it had stories from small app developers.
But again, in this age where there are so many middlemen between consumers and creators, this is a must-read for everyone.
This is also an important book for those who are consumers of content. If you want to support the creatives you love, whether they’re YouTubers, writers or musicians, you need to understand how they’re being taken advantage of. This world doesn’t have nearly as many creators as there could be due to the fact that these platforms are screwing them. There are also other chokepoints like DRM that make the experience terrible for consumers as well by locking them into platforms.
Giblin and Doctorow also offer a ton of great solutions in this book. If I was forced to have a criticism of this book, I think it would have done better by discussing more stories about how this affects individual creatives. For example, the story about Audible’s return policy was great, but I really don’t care about multi-billion dollar companies like Epic Games losing money from Apple. Sections like would have been better if it had stories from small app developers.
But again, in this age where there are so many middlemen between consumers and creators, this is a must-read for everyone.