Tim Wu’s “The Master Switch” is a great read at a number of different levels. At one level, it is an interesting history of the information and telecommunications industries in the United States — telephony, radio and television, film and the Internet. But Wu is a policy advocate, and the last third of the book explore currents events (including the AOL-Time Warner merger). He discusses the differences between “open” systems and “closed” systems, and falls squarely on the “open” side of the specturm.
Wu’s policy recommendation is to keep the components — content, network, and access tools — in different hands. Our history shows that in most cases, one company will try to vertically integrate all three components (as AT&T did for much of the 20th century). In Wu’s view, consumers suffer as a result.
Discussion from the Washington Post, and book reviews from the Wall Street Journal and Good Reads.
Highly recommended for internet geeks and public policy geeks, and for anyone who knows who Harry Tuttle was.