The Googlization of Everything

Enshittification

Cory Doctorow

The author of “The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI” describes how decisions by tech leaders made services worse.

The Age of Extraction: How Tech Platforms Conquered the Economy and Threaten Our Future Prosperity

Tim Wu · 224 pages

Next: The Future Just Happened

Michael Lewis · 248 pages

In Liar's Poker the barbarians seized control of the bond markets. In The New New Thing some guys from Silicon Valley redefined the American economy. Now, with his knowing eye and wicked pen, Michael Lewis reveals how much the Internet boom has encouraged great changes in the way we live, work, and think. He finds that we are in the midst of one of the greatest status revolutions in the history of

The Metaverse: And How It Will Revolutionize Everything

Matthew L. Ball · 352 pages

Code Dependent: Living in the Shadow of AI

Madhumita Murgia · 320 pages

Free: The Future of a Radical Price

Chris Anderson

The New York Times bestselling author heralds the future of business in Free.In his revolutionary bestseller, The Long Tail, Chris Anderson demonstrated how the online marketplace creates niche markets, allowing products and consumers to connect in a way that has never been possible before. Now, in Free, he makes the compelling case that in many instances businesses can profit more from giving thi

This Machine Kills Secrets: How WikiLeakers, Cypherpunks, and Hacktivists Aim to Free the World's Information

Andy Greenberg · 384 pages

Who Are The Cypherpunks? This is the unauthorized telling of the revolutionary cryptography story behind the motion picture The Fifth Estate in theatres this October, and We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks, a documentary out now. WikiLeaks brought to light a new form of whistleblowing, using powerful cryptographic code to hide leakers’ identities while they spill the private data of

Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now

Douglas Rushkoff · 296 pages

"An award-winning author explores how the world works in our age of "continuous now". Back in the 1970s, futurism was all the rage. But looking forward is becoming a thing of the past. According to Douglas Rushkoff, "presentism" is the new ethos of a society that's always on, in real time, updating live. Guided by neither history nor long term goals, we navigate a sea of media that blend the past

We Are Anonymous: Inside the Hacker World of LulzSec Anonymous

Parmy Olson

*We Are Anonymous* is the first full account of how a loosely assembled group of hackers scattered across the globe formed a new kind of insurgency, seized headlines, and tortured the feds -- and the ultimate betrayal that would eventually bring them down. Parmy Olson goes behind the headlines and into the world of Anonymous and LulzSec with unprecedented access, drawing upon hundreds of conversat

You Are Not a Gadget

Jaron Lanier · 224 pages

A computer-age visionary argues that the Internet has failed to live up to its early promises, sharing cautionary perspectives on the Web 2.0 design concept while optimistically evaluating the Internet as a positive cultural vehicle.

The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom

Yochai Benkler · 528 pages

To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism

Evgeny Morozov · 432 pages

Argues that technology is changing the way we understand human society and discusses how the disciplines of politics, culture, public debate, morality, and humanism will be affected when responsibility for them is delegated to technology.

The Internet Is Not the Answer

Andrew Keen · 273 pages

Hamlet's BlackBerry: A Practical Philosophy for Building a Good Life in the Digital Age

William Powers · 272 pages

"A soulful polemic that challenges the sacred dogma of the digital age--that the more we connect with others, the happier we are--arguing that as our electronic connectedness grows, we are pulled away from the relationships and experiences that give life texture, depth, and meaning"--

Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations

Clay Shirky · 334 pages

An examination of how the rapid spread of new forms of social interaction enabled by technology is changing the way humans form groups and exist within them, with profound long-term economic and social effects--for good and for ill. Our age's new technologies of social networking are evolving, and evolving us, into new groups doing new things in new ways, and old and new groups alike doing the old

The Filter Bubble: What the Internet is Hiding From You

Eli Pariser · 300 pages

The hidden rise of personalization on the Internet is controlling--and limiting--the information we consume. In 2009, Google began customizing its search results. Instead of giving you the most broadly popular result, Google now tries to predict what you are most likely to click on. According to MoveOn.org board president Eli Pariser, this change is symptomatic of the most significant shift to tak

Cypherpunks: Freedom and the Future of the Internet

Julian Assange, Jacob Appelbaum, Andy Muller-Maguhn, Jeremie Zimmermann · 186 pages

The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains

Nicholas Carr · 300 pages

Examines the influences computer-delivered information may have on human cognition using Marshall McLuhan as the hook, the history of communication as the trajectory, and brain science as the tool.

Modern Romance

Aziz Ansari, Eric Klinenberg · 288 pages

From NYU Wagner: At some point, every one of us embarks on a journey to find love. We meet people, date, get into and out of relationships, all with the hope of finding someone with whom we share a deep connection. This seems standard now, but it’s wildly different from what people did even just decades ago. Single people today have more romantic options than at any point in human history. Wit

The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century

Thomas L. Friedman · 600 pages

When scholars write the history of the world twenty years from now, what will they say was the most crucial development at the dawn of the 21st century--the attacks of 9/11, or the convergence of technology and events that allowed India, China, and so many other countries to become part of the global supply chain for services and manufacturing, creating an explosion of wealth in the middle classes

I Live in the Future & Here's How It Works: Why Your World, Work & Brain Are Being Creatively Disrupted

Nick Bilton · 298 pages

Public Parts: How Sharing in the Digital Age is Revolutionizing Life, Business, and Society

Jeff Jarvis · 267 pages

Argues that the growth of social networking and increased openness online is beneficial in the digital age and can lead to increased collaboration and changes in the way people organize, govern, teach, and learn.

The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future (Or, Don't Trust Anyone Under 30)

Mark Bauerlein · 264 pages

This shocking, lively exposure of the intellectual vacuity of today's under thirty set reveals the disturbing and, ultimately, incontrovertible truth: cyberculture is turning us into a nation of know-nothings.Can a nation continue to enjoy political and economic predominance if its citizens refuse to grow up?For decades, concern has been brewing about the dumbed-down popular culture available to y

So You've Been Publicly Shamed

Jon Ronson · 313 pages

"From the internationally bestselling author of The Psychopath Test, a captivating and brilliant exploration of one of our world's most overlooked forces. For the past three years, Jon Ronson has been immersing himself in the world of modern-day public shaming-meeting famous shamees, shamers, and bystanders who have been impacted. This is the perfect time for a modern-day Scarlet Letter-a radicall