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“Everyone complains about the Internet, but no one does anything about it…except for Jaron Lanier.”
— Neal Stephenson, New York Times bestselling author
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“The most important book I read [this year]…Provocative,
unconventional ideas for ensuring that the inevitable dominance of software in
every corner of society will be healthy instead of harmful.”
— Joe Nocera, New York Times
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“This ambitious book is about how to help ordinary people
survive and prosper at a time when advances in computer technology make it
increasingly difficult for some people to find a job.”
— USA Today
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“What separates Lanier from a lot of techno-futurists is
his emphasis on the maintaining humanism and accessibility in technology. In
the most ambitious part of the book, Lanier expresses what he believes to be
the ideal version of the networked future…Lanier is able to conjure a future
that’s much brighter, and hopefully in his imagination, we are moving closer to
that.”
— Amazon.com, editorial review
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“A smart, accessible book that takes a critical look at our
online state of affairs and finds it out of balance.”
— Los Angeles Times
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“Lanier's latest book shows him as a wide-ranging thinker and advocate, embedding technology in the context of the rapid economic transformation and dislocation it is causing.”
— San Francisco Chronicle
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“Lanier’s career as a computer scientist is entwined in the central economic story of our time, the rapid advance of computation and networking…[Who Owns the Future?] not only makes a convincing diagnosis of a widespread problem but also answers a need for moonshot thinking.”
— New Republic
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“One of the best skeptical books about the online world.”
— Salon
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“One of the triumphs of Lanier’s intelligent and subtle book is its inspiring portrait of the kind of people that a democratic information economy would produce. His vision implies that if we are allowed to lead absorbing, properly remunerated lives, we will likewise outgrow our addiction to consumerism and technology.”
— Guardian (London)
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“Lanier has a mind as boundless as the internet…[He is] the David Foster Wallace of tech.”
— Evening Standard (London)
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“Lanier has a poet’s sensibility and his book reads like a hallucinogenic reverie, full of entertaining haiku-like observations and digressions.”
— Financial Times (London)
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“Lanier describes a future in which most productivity will
be driven by software and software could be the final industrial revolution.
This is a challenging book about a future information economy that the author
suggests does not need to be dominated by technology.”
— Booklist
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“Computer
scientist, revolutionary thinker, and a leading researcher in the area of
virtual reality who either coined or popularized that term (depending on whom
you ask), Lanier is the person to listen to about technology. Here he argues
that while digital technologies should be guaranteeing our financial health,
given the efficiencies they deliver, the information economy has in fact
concentrated wealth in the hands of a few—weakening our middle class and hence
our democracy. Lanier doesn't just sling arrows but makes suggestions—including
monetizing data now treated as being cost free.”
— Library Journal
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“Narrator
Pete Simonelli’s personable, evenly modulated style moves the material in this
audiobook as if it were on a conveyor belt…There’s plenty of thought-provoking,
inventive stuff here, and it’s hard to knock Lanier’s core belief that nothing
is really ‘free’ on the Internet—we’re all paying for Twitter, Bing, MapQuest,
and all the other Siren Servers (mega companies that dominate an Internet
business sector)--and the bill for all of it will soon come due.”
— AudioFile
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“Who Owns the Future? is a deeply original and sometimes startling read. Lanier does not simply question the dominant narrative of our times, but picks it up by the neck and shakes it. A refreshing and important book that will make you see the world differently.”
— Tim Wu, author of The Master Switch
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“This book is rare. It looks at technology with an insider’s knowledge, wisdom, and deep caring about human beings. It’s badly needed.”
— W. Brian Arthur, economist and author of The Nature of Technology