The Internet Is Not the Answer

December 1, 2014
Keen (Digital Vertigo) presents an damning indictment of the Internet and digital technology, arguing that they have failed to deliver on their promises of fostering greater democracy and openness. Keen acknowledges that new technology is reshaping society but asserts, “It hasn’t transformed the role of either power or wealth in the world.” Instead, we’re seeing “deepening inequality of wealth and opportunity.” Keen points repeatedly to the Internet’s destructive impact on jobs, noting that the private sector employs fewer and fewer people, even as profit levels rise; new technology companies are destroying jobs without creating new ones. And the Internet fosters voyeurism, narcissism, and misogyny; it enables unprecedented and untold information gathering and surveillance. Keen has a deep understanding of technology and concedes that “the Internet is not all bad.” But he argues that the negatives outweigh the positives, and that the self-important Silicon Valley entrepreneurs of the 21st century “have much in common with the capitalist robber barons of the first industrial revolution.” Though Keen misses several opportunities to genuinely, journalistically engage with the examples he draws, he offers a well-written, convincing critique of Silicon Valley, and a worthy read for anyone with an email account. Agent: George Lucas, Inkwell Management.

February 1, 2015

Keen (Digital Vertigo; The Cult of the Amateur) argues that today's Internet business models have harmed society by ushering in a vastly unequal distribution of economic power and value. He contrasts the industry's early years--a result of government and academic research and featuring a lack of monetization--with its "disruptive" recent incarnation. He declares that the Internet became monetized--and detrimental to most of society--starting in the 1990s, roughly with the rise of the modern web browser and companies such as Amazon and eBay ("Web 1.0"). Today, Keen argues, users provide content to sites including Facebook and Instagram free of charge, while the companies sell our data to make billions of dollars for their handful of executives. These technology companies also have few employees compared to businesses that were subject to the models of the past. Keen acknowledges that the modern Internet is not all bad, but insists it can do better. He argues for more oversight and laws, such as France's "anti-Amazon" law that prohibits free shipping on discounted books. A well-written work, though topics sometimes appear disjointed. VERDICT A must-read for technophiles and business leaders, or those curious about technology's societal effects.--Leigh Mihlrad, FDIC Lib., Washington, DC

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2014

Since Internet entrepreneur Keen currently serves as executive director of the Silicon Valley salon FutureCast and host of a popular Techcrunch chat show, you might expect him to rave about all things cyber. But Keen (The Cult of the Amateur) was an early Internet agnostic who here argues that the Internet has been bad news for everyone but a select group of young, privileged, rich, white Silicon Valley guys.

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 15, 2014
A Silicon Valley veteran and journalist sounds the alarm on the pernicious effects of the Internet.Everything you love about the Internet-the connection, the convenience, the way it puts the world of information, goods and services at your fingertips-has its dark, Orwellian side, argues Keen (Digital Vertigo: How Today's Online Social Revolution Is Dividing, Diminishing, and Disorienting Us, 2012, etc.). Yes, the Internet changed the corporate playing field, and some have played by the new rules far better than others, but the book sometimes makes it seem that such success is itself a crime: "As in the medieval world, Google, Apple, and Facebook have detached themselves from the physical reality of the increasingly impoverished communities around them." Keen rightly warns about loss of privacy (often willingly if unwittingly surrendered), about fortunes made through consumers working for free (with every Facebook post or Google search), about a future, if not the present, in which every connection is monitored and exploited. But his laments about the crash of Kodak and the demise of so many record stores suggest that he might as well be pining for the steam locomotive and quill pen. While he admits that much of the cultural change has been driven by consumers, leading to winner-take-all fortunes for whoever satisfies the customer best, those consumers simply don't see the big picture: "Internet evangelists, especially libertarian entrepreneurs like Jeff Bezos, see everything in terms of satisfying the customer. And while Amazon does indeed satisfy most of us as consumers, it is having a far less satisfactory outcome for citizens." For all of his doomsday prophecy, Keen's solutions seem scaled down and conventional: recommendations for "technology Sabbaths or joining the 'slow Web' movement" and to "use the law and regulation to force the Internet out of its prolonged adolescence." Though the book serves as a corrective to cybertech utopianism, even the author admits, "I certainly couldn't have written this book without the miracles of email and the Web."

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March 1, 2015
Keen wants you to know that the Internet has not lived up to its early promise. Rather than fostering an environment of intellectual and social democracy, it has spawned a rule-by-mob culture, promoted narcissism and voyeurism, encouraged intolerance and exclusivity, created global monopolies, increased unemployment, and decimated whole industries. The author seems downright bitter about the way corporate behemoths like Google and Amazon promote themselves as uncompanies, as zippy alternatives to old-world corporations. Make no mistake, this is an angry book, but Keen tempers his invective with cold, hard facts (Amazon's contribution to the upheaval in the publishing and retail sectors, for example). Is this a balanced look at the benefits and drawbacks of the Internet? No. There are books that provide that, but this one is designed to give people who think of the Internet as a sort of democratic digital paradise a hard dose of reality (or one interpretation of reality). Sure to be condemned by some for its seemingly one-sided approach, the book nevertheless clearly stakes out a position in the ongoing debate over what the digital age has wrought.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)