The Master Switch According to Dana and Shawn

Essential Quotes from The Master Switch by Tim Wu

Page 5

It may seem a bit incongruous to begin a book whose ultimate concern is the future of information with a portrait of Theodore Vail, the greatest monopolist in the history of the information industries, basking in the glories of the nations’ most vital communications network under his absolute control.

Yet when we look carefully at the twentieth century, we soon find that the Internet wasn't the first information technology supposed to have changed everything forever. 

Page 169

The basic story of the Internet’s early development has been told many times; but our specific concern is to understand what was the same and what was different about this network as compared with radio, television, and the telephone system.

Page 318

If this book demonstrates one thing it is that, over the long haul, competition in the information industries has been the exception, monopoly the rule. Apart from brief periods of openness created by new inventions or antitrust breakups, the story is mostly one of dominant firms. There is strong reason to believe that there is nothing new under the sun, that the great universal network is as disposed to monopoly as its predecessors.

Page 320

If only there were some way of enjoying the short-term benefits of monopoly without the long-term oppression. This is precisely what the Separation Principle aims to make possible.

Finally, what about the individual user, empowered as never before since the computer revolution? In an age ruled by individual choice how is it that we could be in danger of such an unprecedented takeover of information? Do we in fact seem to embrace, even celebrate, information empires?

Questions to discuss:

Who holds the master switch? (Who is the person in yellow on the cover?)

Why do we exclude information from the discussions and frustrations about monopolies?

Is the internet any different from the other forms of information technology, i.e. telephone, radio?

What can we learn from the cycles of information empires?