The Master Switch
In this age of an open internet, it is easy to forget that every American information industry, beginning with the telephone, has eventually been taken captive by some ruthless monopoly or cartel. With all our media now traveling a single network, an unprecedented potential is building for centralized control over what Americans see and hear. Could history repeat itself with the next industrial consolidation? Could the internet- the entire flow of American information- come to be ruled by one corporate leviathan in possession of "the master switch"? That is the big question that the author presents in this pathbreaking book. As Wu's sweeping history shows, each of the new media of the twentieth century- radio, telephone, television, and film- was born free and open. Each invited unrestricted use and enterprising experiment until some would-be mogul battled his way to total domination. Explaining how invention begets industry and industry begets empire- a progress often blessed by government, typically with stifling consequences for free expression and technical innovation alike- Wu identifies a time-honored pattern in the maneuvers of today's great information powers: Apple, Goggle, and an eerily resurgent AT & T.A battle royal looms for the internet's future, and with almost every aspect of our lives now dependent on that network, this is one war we dare not tune out.
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72% recommend27% neutral1% critical
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- Thanks :)
Another cool book about back and forth between monopolies and decentralisation in our space: https://www.amazon.com/Master-Switch-Rise-Information-Empire...
It also has an audiobook.
- Sadly, and fortunately, there is no such thing as "avoiding centralization", the evidence is overwhelming:
== Politics & Sociology (power concentrates in organizations)
- Robert Michels, Political Parties (1911) origin of the "iron law of oligarchy": even democratic groups tend to end up run by a few: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_oligarchy
- Jo Freeman, "The Tyranny of Structurelessness" (1970/72): leaderless groups develop informal, unaccountable elites unless they make structure explicit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tyranny_of_Structurelessne...
- Max Weber, bureaucracy & rational-legal authority: why modern societies gravitate to rule-bound, hierarchical administration: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational-legal_authority
- James G. March & Herbert A. Simon, Organizations (1958): classics on bounded rationality and why attention/decision bottlenecks yield hierarchy: https://www.amazon.se/-/en/James-G-March/dp/0471567930
== Economics & Political Economy (why markets/platforms centralize)
- Ronald Coase, "The Nature of the Firm" (1937): firms exist (and grow) when internal coordination is cheaper than market exchange: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-0335.1937...
- Oliver Williamson, Markets and Hierarchies (1975): transaction-cost economics: asset specificity & opportunism push activity into hierarchies: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1496220
- W. Brian Arthur, "Increasing Returns and Lock-In" (1989): small early advantages + network effects => path-dependent monopolies: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2234208
- Katz & Shapiro, network effects (1985/1994): compatibility and standards help explain winner-take-most dynamics: https://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/systems.pdf
- Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century (2014): when r > g, wealth concentrates; proposes progressive wealth taxation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_in_the_Twenty-First_Ce...
== Networks, Complexity & Information (why hubs and hierarchies emerge)
Albert-László Barabási, Linked (2002): preferential attachment makes networks develop hubs (central nodes) http://networksciencebook.com/chapter/5
Herbert A. Simon, "The Architecture of Complexity" (1962): complex systems often become hierarchical because modular hierarchies are easier to evolve and manage https://faculty.sites.iastate.edu/tesfatsi/archive/tesfatsi/...
W. Ross Ashby, "Law of Requisite Variety" (1956): controllers need at least as much "variety" as the environment and it often pushes toward central coordinating mechanisms (or many distributed ones with enough capacity) http://pcp.vub.ac.be/books/AshbyReqVar.pdf
Gilbert & Lynch, proof of the CAP theorem (2002): in distributed computing you can’t have perfect consistency + availability under network partitions and real systems centralize/compromise to cope: https://groups.csail.mit.edu/tds/papers/Gilbert/Brewer2.pdf
Robert K. Merton, "The Matthew Effect" (1968): cumulative advantage: success attracts more success, reinforcing centralization of recognition/resources https://garfield.library.upenn.edu/merton/matthew1.pdf
== State power, legibility & infrastructure (why governments centralize)
James C. Scott, Seeing Like a State (1998): states seek legibility and large projects favor central plans and standardized populations/landscapes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seeing_Like_a_State (literally anything by Jim Scott -RIP- will be useful)
Tim Wu, The Master Switch (2010): communications industries cycle from openness to centralized "information empires" https://www.amazon.com/Master-Switch-Rise-Information-Empire...
== Technology & platforms (contemporary centralization)
Nick Srnicek, Platform Capitalism (2017): explains how platform business models + data/network effects produce concentration https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Platform+Capitalism-p-9781509504...
== When decentralization can work
Elinor Ostrom, Governing the Commons (1990): shows conditions (clear rules, monitoring, graduated sanctions, polycentric governance) under which decentralized, federated management of shared resources succeed https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/governing-the-commons/A...
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the literature making a counterpoint is abundant / overwhelming but that feels bleak considering when reading these works, systems thinking )the basis for "la technique") favors centralization
- Trust in “Big tech” reaches back into the early 20th century with Bell Labs. If this topic interests you, I highly recommend “The Master Switch” by Tim Wu:
- highly recommend people read Master Switch by tim wu. In part talks about how the FCC in the past has destroyed competition and progress.
- From a historical (and academic) perspective, most decentralized services seem to tend towards monopolization.
Telephones, radio broadcasting, and the Internet are all examples of once-decentralized, democratizing forces that were eventually centralized from a corporate control perspective.
I don't know if this will change in the future; it'd require either a very active legal agenda or incredibly engaged citizens/consumers.
"The Master Switch"[1] is a great book on the above.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Master-Switch-Rise-Information-Empire...
- The list (with Goodreads links that may be useful to get further information):
-- Roma Agrawal - Built: The Hidden Stories Behind our Structures - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34921647-built
-- Simon Winchester - The Perfectionists: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35068671-the-perfectioni...
-- Deb Chachra - How Infrastructure Works: Inside the Systems That Shape Our World - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/112976320-how-infrastruc...
-- David Macaulay - The Way Things Work - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/304889.The_Way_Things_Wo...
-- Christopher Mims - Arriving Today: From Factory to Front Door - Why Everything Has Changed About How and What We Buy - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56816996-arriving-today
-- Tim Wu - The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8201080-the-master-switc...
-- Peter Robison - Flying Blind: The 737 MAX Tragedy and the Fall of Boeing - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55994102-flying-blind
-- Chris Miller - Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60321447-chip-war
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