All business models have something challenging about them, but the problem with the attention merchant business model they have is they need to keep increasing the amount of ads they deliver to people and therefore make their product worse.
Tim WuThere's always people - it doesn't take many - who have a different psychological makeup than most of us who really get joy out of provoking. They don't always believe the things they say, they just like to watch people go crazy. You know, I knew people like that in elementary school - bullies of one kind or another.
Tim WuThere's always going to be a tradeoff between trolling and anonymity, and I guess that's the way life will be. And you can manage it, but you can't cure it.
Tim WuWe already have our phones, but other wearables, and those technologies are going to want to know when you're deciding things and then offer some kind of input subtle or less so on that moment.
Tim WuI think, year in, year out, Google is starting to get worse instead of better. I think this is happening to a lot of the web companies, is as their demand to increase the payload they deliver in ads increases, they end up degrading and corrupting their own services. And you can see it with Google Maps, you can see it with Google Directions, where somehow Uber is, you know, always one of the options. And it's becoming exactly what they said was what they never wanted, which is a pay-for service where the highest bidder gets the best results.
Tim Wu