I am the most concerned that we end up in a situation where your - everything is known about you and so therefore, not only Google, but Google, Facebook, Twitter - the whole set of companies - essentially knows all your weaknesses and therefore how to manipulate you in subtle ways in order to have you do things you might not otherwise do.
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 WuStarting with radio, starting with television, we got used to this idea of stuff being free as long as you just watch a few ads.
Tim WuIf you have a disease and suddenly start getting ads for cures for that disease and it's an embarrassing disease - all that kind of stuff it just gets into that zone of autonomy or privacy where you feel a sense of freedom to be who you want to be.
Tim Wu