Review of “Who Owns the Future?” By Jaron Lanier

As he has done in the past, Lanier celebrates technology as a tool of creativity [..] but he confesses that creating a “mass market for ordinary people” rests on the shaky assumption that the masses “have something to offer.”

No doubt there will be new kinds of accountants for nonmonetary transactions in whatever comes after Second Life, as well as more digital interface designers, but the massive shortcomings of one key sector – education – to retool populations for an age of digital networking remain mysteriously unaddressed in this book. Instead, the solution to the hegemony of “Siren Servers” is more such servers, but ones operating on the model of individual commercial rights he advocates.

There is also a strong role for government in guaranteeing access to data and digital identity protection, and also a digital central bank to be a financial backbone. But isn’t this the same Congress that just tried to pass the Stop Online Piracy Act? And would a digital Ben Bernanke simply intoxicate the masses with trillions of zero-interest credits?

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Great review.There are a lot of nuances Lanier is missing; First, the Net allows unexploited / unexpected / accidental talent, “the few”, to put their stuff out there by-passing all the second wave filters, which on its own, is revolutionary enough (the kicker: everyone has such talent in some shape of form). Guy sitting at home watching YouTube videos became an arms trafficking expert and exposes trafficking in Syria. From YouTube videos.

But the masses, on the general kinds of things that the masses can do, for themselves and others, will cause a lot of change through this ultra-democratized medium as well. We are only seeing the tip of the icerberg here.