The Medieval Internet
(My 93-year-old mother has kept her subscription to the Washington Post strictly because she loves the crossword puzzles. I have shown her websites teeming with crossword puzzles, but she remains unmoved. My mother wants her bundle, and belongs to the last generation to do so.) Information sought a less grandiose, less industrial level of circulati
... See moreMartin Gurri • Revolt of the Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium
one is “in charge of” this ocean of content; no person or board decided that one more photo-sharing utility was needed, or green-lighted the cornucopia of media for blogging, tweeting, or newsfeeds. The core is characterized by government bodies, approval loops, and people and groups with the formal power to say no. There’s a great deal less of
Andrew McAfee, Erik Brynjolfsson • Machine, Platform, Crowd: Harnessing Our Digital Future
As authority shifts from humans to algorithms, we may no longer view the world as the playground of autonomous individuals struggling to make the right choices. Instead, we might perceive the entire universe as a flow of data, see organisms as little more than biochemical algorithms, and believe that humanity’s cosmic vocation is to create an all-e
... See moreYuval Noah Harari • 21 Lessons for the 21st Century
At its inception between the 1960s and 1990s, the internet was imagined as a decentralized, horizontal and open space that would foster freedom and equality. Today, it is a collection of walled gardens, a hierarchical ecosystem ruled by a few gatekeepers who leverage access to data, attention and infrastructural capability to enclose users and comp... See more