By Tim Wu, Knopf, 384 pp. $27.95
Tim Wu, a law professor at Columbia University, argues that information technologies follow a predictable pattern that he terms “the Cycle.”
First, the technology emerges, “bright with promise and possibility.” But the expansive liberty offered by the new technology can carry a downside for consumers, who are overwhelmed by content that is, at turns, brilliant, crass and untrustworthy. And for all the medium’s promise, no one is making any money.
This gives rise to the next phase in the Cycle: A mogul, or a small group of them, emerges to take control of the new service.
Wu does not deny the benefits of these monopolies. The problem comes later: The quiet cost of the new regime is the loss of “a certain measure of control over the medium’s potential for enabling individual expression and technical innovation.” Eventually, new innovations or forms of expression threaten the business model.
Wu tracks the Cycle over and again. His ultimate point is that there is little historical reason to believe the Internet is somehow immune to the Cycle.
Ezra Klein, The Washington Post
