The Curse of Bigness

From the author of the award-winning The Master Switch, who coined the term "net neutrality”—a revelatory, ambitious and urgent account of how the capture and re-sale of human attention became the defining industry of our time. <BR><BR>"Dazzling." —Financial Times <BR><BR>Ours is often called an information economy, but at a moment when access to information is virtually unlimited, our attention has become the ultimate commodity. In nearly every moment of our waking lives, we face a barrage of efforts to harvest our attention. This condition is not simply the byproduct of recent technological innovations but the result of more than a century's growth and expansion in the industries that feed on human attention. <BR><BR>Wu’s narrative begins in the nineteenth century, when Benjamin Day discovered he could get rich selling newspapers for a penny. Since then, every new medium—from radio to television to Internet companies such as Google and Facebook—has attained commercial viability and immense riches by turning itself into an advertising platform. Since the early days, the basic business model of “attention merchants” has never changed: free diversion in exchange for a moment of your time, sold in turn to the highest-bidding advertiser. <BR><BR>Full of lively, unexpected storytelling and piercing insight, The Attention Merchants lays bare the true nature of a ubiquitous reality we can no longer afford to accept at face value.

A New Yorker and Fortune Best Book of the Year<BR><BR>"A must-read for all Americans who want to remain the ones deciding what they can read, watch, and listen to.” —Arianna Huffington<BR><BR>Analyzing the strategic maneuvers of today’s great information powers—Apple, Google, and an eerily resurgent AT&T—Tim Wu uncovers a time-honored pattern in which invention begets industry and industry begets empire. <BR><BR>It is easy to forget that every development in the history of the American information industry—from the telephone to radio to film—once existed in an open and chaotic marketplace inhabited by entrepreneurs and utopians, just as the Internet does today. Each of these, however, grew to be dominated by a monopolist or cartel. <BR><BR>In this pathbreaking book, Tim Wu asks: will the Internet follow the same fate? Could the Web—the entire flow of American information—come to be ruled by a corporate leviathan in possession of "the master switch"? Here, Tim Wu shows how a battle royale for the Internet’s future is brewing, and this is one war we dare not tune out.<BR><BR>

The pre-eminent exponent of anti-monopoly law explains why we have no option but to break Big Tech's monopolies, and that doing so would unleash innovation and growth.<BR><BR>'Wu deftly breaks down one of the greatest challenges of our age - the unaccountable power of tech platforms - into such digestible pieces that the solutions for what to do become dead obvious' KAREN HAO, author of Empire of AI<BR><BR>'Tim Wu is a titan . . . a must-read' Financial Times<BR><BR>Today's dominant tech platforms - the places where we exchange information and buy things online - could be the most powerful engines of prosperity ever invented. Instead, they are the most effective instruments of wealth extraction ever created and a grave threat to our societies.<BR><BR>Here the pre-eminent exponent of anti-monopoly law Tim Wu, who coined the phrase 'net neutrality', explains why breaking Big Tech's monopolies would unleash innovation and growth and is essential if we are to avoid further social division. In their place he sets out the five key ways in which future platforms should be managed to harness the extraordinary potential of these essential technologies and to help build the balanced economies we so badly need.<BR><BR>'Tim Wu's readable, passionate call is for a fairer economy where the benefits of AI can be for all of us' DARON ACEMOGLU, co-author of Why Nations Fail<BR><BR>'Wu's proposed solutions for fixing the internet provide hope, not least because of how simple they are' New Statesman<BR><BR>'Remarkably astute and timely ... a vital book' LINA KHAN, Former Chair of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission<BR><BR>'Cuts to the core' CORY DOCTOROW, author of Enshittification<BR><BR>*A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF 2025*

Tim Wu is an author, policy advocate, and professor at Columbia University. He has been variously named as one of the leaders in science and technology, one of Harvard's 100 most influential graduates and America's 100 Most Influential Lawyers, and in 2014 and 2015 he was named to the "Politico 50." He formerly wrote for Slate, winning the Lowell Thomas Gold medal for Travel Journalism, and is a contributing writer for The New Yorker. In 2015, he was appointed to the Executive Staff of the Office of New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.

Today's dominant tech platforms are the most effective tools ever created for extracting wealth, destabilising the societies they plunder by creating vast inequality. One of the world's pre-eminent anti-monopoly experts explains how and why we must take back control.<BR><BR>'Wu is a titan . . . a must-read' FINANCIAL TIMES<BR><BR>'Cuts to the core' CORY DOCTOROW, author of Enshittification<BR><BR>'Essential' KAREN HAO, author of Age of Empire<BR><BR>Our world is ruled by a handful of tech platforms. They provide great conveniences and entertainment but also stand as some of the most effective instruments of wealth extraction ever invented, seizing immense amounts of money, data and attention from all of us. An economy driven by tech and AI could enrich us, yet it could also marginalize entire industries, widen the wealth gap and foster a two-class nation. As technology evolves and our markets adapt, can society cultivate a better way? Is it possible to balance economic growth and egalitarianism, or are we too late?<BR><BR>Tim Wu, the preeminent scholar and former White House official who coined the phrase 'net neutrality', tells the story of an internet that promised widespread wealth and democracy, only to aid the spread of autocracy instead. From generative AI and predictive social data to antitrust and cryptocurrency, Wu frames our current moment within key lessons from recent history. And, perhaps most importantly of all, Wu envisions a future where technological advances serve the greatest possible good - for everyone.<BR><BR>Concise and hopeful, The Age of Extraction offers consequential proposals for reclaiming control to achieve better economic balance and prosperity for all.<BR><BR>'A passionate call for a fairer economy' DARON ACEMOGLU, co-author of Why Nations Fail<BR><BR>'A how-to book on how we can achieve liberty' MATT STOLLER, author of Goliath

A concise yet century-spanning exploration of the power of platforms, what the future of capitalism will look like, and how to build economies that provide equality and lasting prosperity.<BR><BR>In every society, there has been an essential platform—a central marketplace—where people come to buy, sell, and make their living. While each culture and era are distinct, all have such a platform to serve as the beating heart of the economy. Over most of human history, these platforms have been public and physical: city centers, ports, shopping streets, and stock markets. Today, however, these arenas are more sophisticated, largely privatized, and virtual: they are digital, accessible anywhere, and anchored by the Internet itself. The way these platforms operate determines how the economy works, who it benefits and fails, and how society functions.<BR><BR>Now, Tim Wu—the preeminent legal scholar who coined the phrase “net neutrality”—explores what these platforms tell us about our worlds, and why it is so crucial that they are fair and equal. Platform Capitalism is a sweeping look into the systems we have used for centuries—from the ancient city square to the computer operating system—and reveals what our economies, societies, and life itself will look like in the future.