I'm kind of calling for a - I'm not the only one - you know, a revolution of some kind where we try to take back the web or start something new because, you know, the dominant medium of our time is in a desperate state and it doesn't have to be like that.
Tim WuYou know, it's so funny that the internet's become a series of traps where you do sort of innocent things like give your name or address or indicate a preference, I like this thing, and then therefore you open yourself up to a deluge of advertising based on those stated preferences.
Tim WuHitler understood the demagogues' essential principle to teach or persuade is far more difficult than to stir emotion.
Tim WuThere's a problem which is when you're trapped in your own identity and everything is really you, then you feel less freedom to sort of explore who you want to be. So I think it's kind of something we're stuck with as long as humans are the way we are.
Tim WuIf we generally like the way things are now, we must also ask whether our current situation is really so different from the open ages of radio, film, or the telephone. Might it not also have seemed in those times that the orgy of limitless entrepreneurism would never end? The point is that we are near the high end of a pendulum arc that, so far, has aways begun to swing in the opposite direction -toward greater integration and centralization- with a force that can seem inexorable.
Tim Wu