In the media age, the life cycle of every new invention – from the telephone to radio to film – included a sort of Wild West phase of free range entrepreneurs and visionaries.
But in time, all of them settled into a period that was dominated by a monopolist or corporate cartel. In his new book, “The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires”(Vintage Books), author and professor Tim Wu posits that the Internet – the driving force of modern media commerce – may very well suffer the same fate.
WEIGH IN:
Could the information superhighway be ruled by a singular corporate giant with its own agenda? Or is the Internet dynamic enough to break the paradigm?
Guest:
Tim Wu, author, policy advocate, and professor at Columbia University; currently a senior advisor to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission