The Internet Is Not The Answer - Softcover

Keen lucidly argues that by giving away all our data to Google, Facebook et al, all we actually do is enable them to become some of the biggest companies in the world and make their owners impossible rich... Sobering and persuasive * Observer * In this deliciously splenetic book, Keen tears into the hypocrisy of tech corporations... Keen enriches his macroeconomic survey of the rise of the digital giants with biting descriptions of Silicon Valley, with its hot tubs and private clubs, its tax avoidance and secessionist dreams. * Sunday Times * Says all the things I (and many others) have long suspected but have not quite known how to phrase. -- Andrew Miller * Independent * Andrew Keen is the Christopher Hitchens of the Internet. Neglect this book with peril. In an industry and world full of prosaic pabulum about the supposedly digitally divine, Keen's work is an important and sharp razor. * Michael Fertik, CEO, Reputation.com * If you've ever wondered why the New Economy looks suspiciously like the Old Economy - only with even more for the winners and less for everyone else - put down your shiny new phablet and read this book. * Robert Levine, author of Free Ride * A provocative title and an even more provocative book. Andrew Keen rightly challenges us to think about how the internet will shape society. I remain more optimistic, but hope I'm right to be so. * Mark Read, CEO, WPP Digital * Keen provokes us in every sense of the word-at times maddening, more often thought-provoking, he lets just enough out of the Silicon Valley hot air balloon to start a real conversation about the full impact of digital technology. * Larry Downes, co-author of Unleashing the Killer App * Andrew Keen has again shown himself one of the sharpest critics of Silicon Valley hype, greed, egotism, and inequity. His tales are revealing, his analyses biting. * Mark Bauerlain, author of The Dumbest Generation * Andrew Keen has written a very powerful and daring manifesto questioning whether the Internet lives up to its own espoused values. He is not an opponent of Internet culture, he is its conscience, and must be heard. * Po Bronson * A packed compendium of all the ways digital life casts aside basic human virtues in favor of a rapacious, winner-takes-all economy. Out of Silicon Valley's libertarian ethos came the myths that information "wants to be free" and that the Internet is fueling a cooperative new utopianism. Keen is excellent at exposing the hypocrisy of that mythology. -- Michael Harris * Washington Post * Extremely well-researched and well-written -- William Hartston * Daily Express * Keen has a sharp eye when it comes to skewering the pretensions and self-delusions of the new digital establishment * Financial Times * The most compelling, persuasive and passionately negative thing I've yet read on this topic. It offers a scary picture of how the ultra-libertarian superstars of Silicon Valley are leading us inexorably into a future with the sort of social inequalities not seen in the West since the early days of the Industrial Revolution. -- Kazuo Ishiguro * 'Books of the Year', New Statesman * A punchy manifesto about the future and integrity of the internet age... This book is a must-read for anyone remotely concerned about their lives on the net. * Independent * Andrew Keen's pleasingly incisive study argues that, far from being a democratising force in society, the internet has only amplified global inequities. -- John Naughton * Observer * Pacey and chilling... A powerful, frightening read -- Bryan Appleyard * Sunday Times *

In this sharp and witty book, long-time Silicon Valley observer and author Andrew Keen argues that, on balance, the Internet has had a disastrous impact on all our lives. By tracing the history of the Internet, from its founding in the 1960s to the creation of the World Wide Web in 1989, through the waves of start-ups and the rise of the big data companies to the increasing attempts to monetize almost every human activity, Keen shows how the Web has had a deeply negative effect on our culture, economy and society. Informed by Keen's own research and interviews, as well as the work of other writers, reporters and academics, The Internet is Not the Answer is an urgent investigation into the tech world - from the threat to privacy posed by social media and online surveillance by government agencies, to the impact of the Internet on unemployment and economic inequality. Keen concludes by outlining the changes that he believes must be made, before it's too late. If we do nothing, he warns, this new technology and the companies that control it will continue to impoverish us all.