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picto 's review for:
The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation
by Cory Doctorow
The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation is a book broadly split into two sections. The first part critiques 'Big Tech', the problems they cause, and why Amazon's flywheel, lock-in and the prison of a walled garden. This part of the book is in equal parts informative and depressing. It is clear that the issues they cause make everyone's online lives worse; even if, like me, you don't use Facebook or Google, their sheer size and power impact me. If the systems were open, I could still interact with people over the fence as it is. I can't join the discussion on my kid's parties or collaborate with the writing friends on a document.
The second part of the book is where Doctorow identifies some solutions and their impact. This is a much more hopeful section, and while I agree that many of them would work or at least be a step in the right direction, I doubt the political will of our leaders to make any of them happen any time soon.
Overall, this is an interesting book worth reading if you have even a passing interest in what went wrong with technology and how we can solve it.
The second part of the book is where Doctorow identifies some solutions and their impact. This is a much more hopeful section, and while I agree that many of them would work or at least be a step in the right direction, I doubt the political will of our leaders to make any of them happen any time soon.
Overall, this is an interesting book worth reading if you have even a passing interest in what went wrong with technology and how we can solve it.