Tim Wu Quotes

Quotes about:

• Net neutrality is the principle that the service providers who control or access, who own the pipes, should not favor some content over another. It's, you know, an even playing field for stuff on the Internet, and, you know, I think it's very important to the medium that it have a rough quality among contents. Everyone has their shot.

  Tim Wu

  Thinking, Important, Quality

  "How Free Web Content Traps People In An Abyss Of Ads And Clickbait". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, wncw.org. October 17, 2016.

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• Markets are born free, yet no sooner are they born than some would-be emperor is forging chains. Paradoxically, it sometimes happens that the only way to preserve freedom is through judicious controls on the exercise of private power. If we believe in liberty, it must be freedom from both private and public coercion.

  Tim Wu

  Believe, Exercise, Liberty

  Tim Wu (2010). “The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires”, p.223, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• History shows a typical progression of information technologies: from somebody's hobby to somebody's industry; from jury-rigged contraption to slick production marvel; from a freely accessible channel to one strictly controlled by a single corporation or cartel-from open to closed system.

  Tim Wu

  Technology, Typical, Hobbies

  Tim Wu (2010). “The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires”, p.9, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• We have just decided we have to have everything for free. And I think we're starting to pay for it in terms of our mental states.

  Tim Wu

  Thinking, Pay, Starting

  Source: www.npr.org

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• In the media, traditional media like print, we had boundaries. You know, we had spaces that ads didn't leave. They stayed where they were on the page. They didn't float around over the text. And we're kind of lost on the internet. We don't have any barriers. We have a demand for growth that is insistent.

  Tim Wu

  Media, Space, Growth

  Source: www.npr.org

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• I wish more of the web had stayed nonprofit. But the advertising model took over and I think has delivered us to where we are, along with the development of content, which is designed to do nothing else but make you click on it or share it. And I think it's kind of a low goal for content, and I think that's taken us to our current abyss.

  Tim Wu

  Taken, Thinking, Goal

  Source: www.npr.org

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• The most interesting thing about Google is its founders hated advertising.

  Tim Wu

  Interesting, Google, Advertising

  Source: www.npr.org

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• More than anyone else, Adolf Hitler completely understood the union between government propaganda and between - and advertising, that they were in some ways the same thing.

  Tim Wu

  Government, Unions, Way

  Source: www.npr.org

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• I am the most concerned that we end up in a situation where your - everything is known about you and so therefore, not only Google, but Google, Facebook, Twitter - the whole set of companies - essentially knows all your weaknesses and therefore how to manipulate you in subtle ways in order to have you do things you might not otherwise do.

  Tim Wu

  Order, Google, Weakness

  "How Free Web Content Traps People In An Abyss Of Ads And Clickbait". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. October 17, 2016.

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• The best antidote to the disruptive power of innovation is overregulation.

  Tim Wu

  Innovation, Antidote, Disruptive

  Tim Wu (2010). “The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires”, p.96, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• Nothing, save the hangman's noose, concentrates the mind like piles of cash.

  Tim Wu

  Mind, Cash, Hangman

  Tim Wu (2010). “The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires”, p.19, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• When you think about normal advertising, it's just like, hey, here's a car and, you know, we don't know if you're looking for a car or not. So Google promised that mental state, and then were able to prove that delivering the message at the exact right moment would make someone click on something. So they pioneered the idea that advertising could be profitable on the internet, that a specific, very micromental state could be targeted. And they established the primacy of the click, which has haunted us ever since.

  Tim Wu

  Thinking, Ideas, Car

  Source: www.npr.org

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• Advertising just keeps getting heavier and heavier and heavier. It doesn't have any natural limit, and we haven't found the place for the limit. And I think it's really important, therefore, that some of the revolts that are undergoing right now, you know, whether it's ad blockers or other things, are people trying to set some lines so that we say, you know, this far but no further. And this is where it ends.

  Tim Wu

  Thinking, People, Important

  Source: www.npr.org

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• Take back the web because it is a situation that really isn't working for anyone.

  Tim Wu

  Situation

  Source: www.npr.org

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• When you pay for stuff, it has more of your interests in heart.

  Tim Wu

  Heart, Pay, Stuff

  Source: www.npr.org

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• Let's say you're someone's phone, and you notice that your owner is drinking coffee at certain times of the day, just very subtly indicating where the local coffee shop is which happens to have paid, you know, whoever makes your phone at the right moment. I think we're in a future where frankly we are possibly facing little tiny bits of manipulation in all of our waking hours, if we don't have that already.

  Tim Wu

  Drinking, Coffee, Thinking

  Source: www.npr.org

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• The case for industry breakups comes from Thomas Jefferson's idea that occasional revolutions are important to the health of any system. As he wrote in 1787, “a little rebellion every now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical one.

  Tim Wu

  Breakup, Ideas, Political

  Tim Wu (2010). “The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires”, p.119, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• I'm afraid when too many people know too much about you, it actually makes us all a lot more boring because you're afraid to express yourself.

  Tim Wu

  People, Too Much, Boring

  Source: www.npr.org

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• If you really care about content, you should pay for it.

  Tim Wu

  Care, Pay, Should

  "How Free Web Content Traps People In An Abyss Of Ads And Clickbait". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, wnpr.org. October 17, 2016.

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• Starting with radio, starting with television, we got used to this idea of stuff being free as long as you just watch a few ads.

  Tim Wu

  Ideas, Long, Being Free

  Source: www.npr.org

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• There's always going to be a tradeoff between trolling and anonymity, and I guess that's the way life will be. And you can manage it, but you can't cure it.

  Tim Wu

  Way, Cures, Manage

  Source: www.npr.org

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• I think Google is the most successful attention merchant - profitable attention merchant in the history of the world, most successful advertising-only based company - most profitable. They started a very idealistic, beautiful company in many ways, but they didn't have a business model.

  Tim Wu

  Beautiful, Successful, Thinking

  "How Free Web Content Traps People In An Abyss Of Ads And Clickbait". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. October 17, 2016.

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• You have to think back to the '90s. The computer was this terrible-looking thing that was trying to compete with the television. And it was this idea of email and chat rooms and this kind of stuff that first people - got people there.

  Tim Wu

  Thinking, Ideas, People

  Source: www.npr.org

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• Socialization would be the most successful thing to bring mainstream audiences to online computers.

  Tim Wu

  Successful, Would Be, Computer

  "How Free Web Content Traps People In An Abyss Of Ads And Clickbait". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, wncw.org. October 17, 2016.

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• The breakup of Bell laid the foundation for every important communications revolution since the 1980s onward. There was no way of knowing that thirty years on we would have an Internet, handheld computers, and social networking, but it is hard to imagine their coming when they did, had the company that bured the answering machine remained intact.

  Tim Wu

  Breakup, Communication, Knowing

  Tim Wu (2010). “The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires”, p.119, Atlantic Books Ltd

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