The Age of Extraction: How Tech Platforms Conquered the Economy and Threaten Our Future Prosperity
Tim Wu explores how today's dominant platforms manipulate attention, extract wealth, and deepen inequality-urging us to recognize their influence and reclaim control to create a balanced economy that works for all.

"It's not just in your head-your online life is draining your wallet.... [The Age of Extraction is] a sharp and eye-opening introduction to how we arrived at platform capitalism-where no good click goes unmonetized.”-Kirkus Reviews


Our world is dominated by a handful of tech platforms. They provide great conveniences and entertainment, but also stand as some of the most effective instruments of wealth extraction ever invented, seizing immense amounts of money, data, and attention from all of us. An economy driven by digital platforms and AI influence offers the potential to enrich us, and also threatens to marginalize entire industries, widen the wealth gap, and foster a two-class nation. As technology evolves and our markets adapt, can society cultivate a better life for everyone? Is it possible to balance economic growth and egalitarianism, or are we too far gone?

Tim Wu-the preeminent scholar and former White House official who coined the phrase “net neutrality”-explores the rise of platform power and details the risks and rewards of working within such systems. The Age of Extraction tells the story of an Internet that promised widespread wealth and democracy in the 1990s and 2000s, only to create new economic classes and aid the spread of autocracy instead. Wu frames our current moment with lessons from recent history-from generative AI and predictive social data to the antimonopoly and crypto movements-and envisions a future where technological advances can serve the greatest possible good. Concise and hopeful, The Age of Extraction offers consequential proposals for taking back control in order to achieve a better economic balance and prosperity for all.
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The Age of Extraction: How Tech Platforms Conquered the Economy and Threaten Our Future Prosperity
Tim Wu explores how today's dominant platforms manipulate attention, extract wealth, and deepen inequality-urging us to recognize their influence and reclaim control to create a balanced economy that works for all.

"It's not just in your head-your online life is draining your wallet.... [The Age of Extraction is] a sharp and eye-opening introduction to how we arrived at platform capitalism-where no good click goes unmonetized.”-Kirkus Reviews


Our world is dominated by a handful of tech platforms. They provide great conveniences and entertainment, but also stand as some of the most effective instruments of wealth extraction ever invented, seizing immense amounts of money, data, and attention from all of us. An economy driven by digital platforms and AI influence offers the potential to enrich us, and also threatens to marginalize entire industries, widen the wealth gap, and foster a two-class nation. As technology evolves and our markets adapt, can society cultivate a better life for everyone? Is it possible to balance economic growth and egalitarianism, or are we too far gone?

Tim Wu-the preeminent scholar and former White House official who coined the phrase “net neutrality”-explores the rise of platform power and details the risks and rewards of working within such systems. The Age of Extraction tells the story of an Internet that promised widespread wealth and democracy in the 1990s and 2000s, only to create new economic classes and aid the spread of autocracy instead. Wu frames our current moment with lessons from recent history-from generative AI and predictive social data to the antimonopoly and crypto movements-and envisions a future where technological advances can serve the greatest possible good. Concise and hopeful, The Age of Extraction offers consequential proposals for taking back control in order to achieve a better economic balance and prosperity for all.
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The Age of Extraction: How Tech Platforms Conquered the Economy and Threaten Our Future Prosperity

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

by Tim Wu

Narrated by Frits Zernike

Unabridged

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

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

by Tim Wu

Narrated by Frits Zernike

Unabridged

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Overview

Tim Wu explores how today's dominant platforms manipulate attention, extract wealth, and deepen inequality-urging us to recognize their influence and reclaim control to create a balanced economy that works for all.

"It's not just in your head-your online life is draining your wallet.... [The Age of Extraction is] a sharp and eye-opening introduction to how we arrived at platform capitalism-where no good click goes unmonetized.”-Kirkus Reviews


Our world is dominated by a handful of tech platforms. They provide great conveniences and entertainment, but also stand as some of the most effective instruments of wealth extraction ever invented, seizing immense amounts of money, data, and attention from all of us. An economy driven by digital platforms and AI influence offers the potential to enrich us, and also threatens to marginalize entire industries, widen the wealth gap, and foster a two-class nation. As technology evolves and our markets adapt, can society cultivate a better life for everyone? Is it possible to balance economic growth and egalitarianism, or are we too far gone?

Tim Wu-the preeminent scholar and former White House official who coined the phrase “net neutrality”-explores the rise of platform power and details the risks and rewards of working within such systems. The Age of Extraction tells the story of an Internet that promised widespread wealth and democracy in the 1990s and 2000s, only to create new economic classes and aid the spread of autocracy instead. Wu frames our current moment with lessons from recent history-from generative AI and predictive social data to the antimonopoly and crypto movements-and envisions a future where technological advances can serve the greatest possible good. Concise and hopeful, The Age of Extraction offers consequential proposals for taking back control in order to achieve a better economic balance and prosperity for all.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

The paradox of the platform: without middlemen, we’d all be stuck, but those same middlemen are forever working to declare themselves to be our bosses. Wu’s characteristically insightful book cuts to the core of these world-consuming, usurping enshittifiers, and tells us how to stop them.”
—Cory Doctorow, author of Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It

Kirkus Reviews

2025-05-30
It’s not just in your head—your online life is draining your wallet.

Have you noticed yourself spending more time immersed in social media, web searches, and purchasing? Wu, an award-winning author, professor at Columbia University, and policy advocate, knows that is no accident. Technology has transformed our marketplaces into ubiquitous, addicting platforms, designed to capture our attention and extract wealth. “Wealth extraction” means taking money from everyone, on all sides of a transaction, raking in maximum profits for platform owners. Descended from the ancient city square, platforms including Amazon, Google, Meta, and corporations serving medical and housing needs are engineered to be both essential and unavoidable, extracting hidden fees. Wu takes a hard look at the intertwined political, economic, and technological histories that led to the rise of dominant platforms and their techniques to ensnare us and keep us engaged and buying. Platform owners understand that resisting convenience is very difficult and leverage this to keep us online. Early internet developers aimed to empower everyone, but large computer companies became monopolies, requiring the creation of anti-monopolistic policies to modulate their power. Another alarming theme is the rise of ChatGPT and large language models. To evolve, they require large quantities of data generated by human interactions with platforms—another form of extraction. Though he points to the dangers and unfairness of economic inequality, Wu doesn’t paint an entirely gloomy picture but does encourage us to recognize and take control back from platforms practicing excessive wealth extraction. Wu covers a lot of territory in this brisk, 30,000-foot view of platforms entwined with our economic lives. The message is to look up from our screens and be cognizant of the extractive environment that surrounds us. Plentiful endnotes and an index will guide those wishing to dig deeper.

A sharp and eye-opening introduction to how we arrived at platform capitalism—where no good click goes unmonetized.

Product Details

BN ID: 2940194237852
Publisher: Penguin Random House
Publication date: 11/04/2025
Edition description: Unabridged
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