The Future of the Internet

Jan 12, 2025 9:56 PM

Author:Jonathan Zittrain

In The Future of the Internet: And How to Stop It Jonathan Zittrain explores the dangers the internet faces if it fails to balance ever more tightly controlled technologies with the flow of innovation that has generated so much progress in the field of technology.

Zittrain argues that today's technological market is dominated by two contrasting business models: the generative and the non-generative. The generative models - the PCs, Windows and Macs of this world - allow third parties to build upon and share through them. The non-generative model is more restricted; appliances such as the xbox, iPod and tomtom might work well, but the only entity that can change the way they operate is the vendor.

If we want the internet to survive we need to change. People must wake up to the risk or we could lose everything.

Reviews

Finally the answer to all the crap that pisses you off

—— Zoo

Understanding is the first step to taking charge, and this book makes doing so seem a breeze.

—— Daily Mail

Hugely enjoyable, this book demystifies science in such an amusing way that I found it hard to put down

—— refresh

Rip-roaring... Kealey's gallop through capitalism, sociology, history, economics and science is a stimulating and splendid read

—— The Times

An entertaining canter through global history...energy and muscular prose are much in evidence

—— The Times Higher Educational Supplement

Extraordinary... a brilliant, counter-intuitive argument in favour of individualism and market forces

—— Mail on Sunday

Kealey writes with enthusiasm and panache... exhilarating and exciting

—— Lancet

This is a compassionate, front-line report from what can often seem like alien territory.

—— Daily Telegraph Summer Reads

The practice of medicine is a way of living: vivid and engrossing, it stimulates senses physical and metaphysical...It is a rare skill for a doctor to be able to communicate this rich sensorium in writing. It is a delight to read the words of one who does it so well

—— The Economist

A superb account of life on the grisly front line of the operating theatre

—— Christopher Hart , Sunday Times

This slender, elegantly written memoir by a female surgeon, Gabriel Weston, is a fascinating, no holds barred account of life in the operating theatre

—— Independent

Through this insightful book, Weston succeeds superbly in communicating the fascinating brutal reality of a surgeon's life

—— Ian Critchley , Daily Telegraph

Gabriel Weston's story succeeds better than any I have known...more riveting and thought-provoking than any fiction

—— The Lady, Susan Hill

Glinting like a tray of instruments, her prose is satisfyingly precise

—— Victoria Segal , The Guardian

A curiously thrilling read, written with an elegance heightened by its clarity and economy

—— Elizabeth Day , Observer

A valuable and unflinching account, since it so clearly tells the truth

—— Christopher Hart , The Sunday Times

This book is mesmerising

—— William Leith , Scotsman

Her description of the struggle to remain individual and hence moral is her real achievement. This, to me, is what female writing has to do, and she does it with style and humour and beauty

—— Rachel Cusk

This much appreciated book should be a must-read for everyone who likes to travel, and should be translated into the languages of the world's tourism champions. It should also be a must-read for politicians and decision makers in development agencies to finally understand that tourism has lost the 'virginity' of a harmless leisure sector to develop into a dangerous global driving force which needs to be regulated and restricted.

—— Contours magazine

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