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May 29, 2013Stratified_nomad rated this title 4.5 out of 5 stars
[To echo what so many others have written...] This is an insightful, highly readable first-hand perpective of internet and it's pervasive influence over humanity and society. As someone who was an integral member of the tech industry during an inchoate stage of web development, Lanier explains how the early decisions about the archecture affected it's subsequent development. Consequently, the fundamental structure of the internet has become unchangeable; mostly for the worse. Lanier convincingly argues that the web is not only homogenizing human personalities, it's also rendering many creative professions -music, art, etc.- financially unviable. Lanier's only minor shortcoming is his proposed remedies; they seem facile and nebbish relative to the scale of the problems he describes. But in much the same way that environmental problems are a fundamental consequence of modern society, so many be the case with the internet: As is the case with so many other technological developments (think cars), the web may have changed society and humanity in such a fundamental way, we're now largely controlled by our own invention.