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A review by juliana_aldous
Who Owns the Future? by Jaron Lanier
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.