Internet for the People

Paperback, 192 pages

English language

Published Aug. 18, 2021 by Verso Books.

ISBN:
978-1-83976-202-4
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5 stars (1 review)

In Internet for the People, leading tech writer Ben Tarnoff offers an answer. The internet is broken, he argues, because it is owned by private firms and run for profit. Google annihilates your privacy and Facebook amplifies right-wing propaganda because it is profitable to do so. But the internet wasn't always like this—it had to be remade for the purposes of profit maximization, through a years-long process of privatization that turned a small research network into a powerhouse of global capitalism. Tarnoff tells the story of the privatization that made the modern internet, and which set in motion the crises that consume it today.

The solution to those crises is straightforward: deprivatize the internet. Deprivatization aims at creating an internet where people, and not profit, rule. It calls for shrinking the space of the market and diminishing the power of the profit motive. It calls for abolishing the walled gardens …

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Review of 'Internet for the People' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

One of the best books on the history of the internet written in this century. It begins with the important histories of the '90's, and then moves onto the latter eras that have so far shaped our poor excuse for an information highway. But it offers hope, all at the same time.