Future Perfect
An interesting book but ultimately his arguments are flawed by inaccuracies and handpicked examples that only really serve to undermine his thesis. For example was Kickstarter really the first to allow small companies to set themselves up with little capital? What about the indie record model as only one example. And books. There is very little social analysis of arguments and not sure why the web is changing the world for the better. His comparison to political left or right / central control or libertarian is nonsense and arbitrary, giving a level of world view analysis that it doesn't warrant by extrapolating theories from an insubstantial starting point. The journalism chapter has no mention of lies that can be peddled on the internet with very little analysis or critique now. He muddles free markets with democracy as if one and the same and has an extremely naive view that big corporations or those who benefit from them will roll over and allow a networked market share in the benefits of profit. Bullshit and of course the big corps will fight down the newcomers if they possibly can. The main network he models his theory on, the internet was itself born top down from the USA military and then academia. Other naive points that to be honest he's not the only one to fall into are shown especially in the chapter on democracy: the American Tea party is not for big corporations - surely that's the inevitable outcome of the unregulated market they espouse. Bottom line is that this is a capitalist apologist plucking examples with little context. School teachers motivated by cash?!
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