The breakup of Bell laid the foundation for every important communications revolution since the 1980s onward. There was no way of knowing that thirty years on we would have an Internet, handheld computers, and social networking, but it is hard to imagine their coming when they did, had the company that bured the answering machine remained intact.
Tim WuMore than anyone else, Adolf Hitler completely understood the union between government propaganda and between - and advertising, that they were in some ways the same thing.
Tim WuThe blessing of the state, implicit or explicit, has been crucial to every twentieth-century information empire.
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 WuGoogle - and some of the other sites, YouTube and, you know - Google has an amazing search engine. The map product is incredible. So there's a sort of exchange when you put up with a bunch of ads. Facebook basically gives you access to your friends who, in theory, you had access to already. So sometimes I don't really understand the deal, but I guess it makes it slightly easier. So that's their contribution.
Tim WuNet neutrality is the principle that the service providers who control or access, who own the pipes, should not favor some content over another. It's, you know, an even playing field for stuff on the Internet, and, you know, I think it's very important to the medium that it have a rough quality among contents. Everyone has their shot.
Tim Wu