The New York Times - Janet Maslin
…[Lanier's] first book, You Are Not a Gadget…was a feisty, brilliant, predictive work, and the new volume is just as exciting. Mr. Lanier bucks a wave of more conventional diatribes on Big Data to deliver Olympian, contrarian fighting words about the Internet's exploitative powers. A self-proclaimed "humanist softie," he is a witheringly caustic critic of big Web entities and their business models…Mr. Lanier's sharp, accessible style and opinions make Who Owns the Future? terrifically inviting.
The Guardian
"One of the triumphs of Lanier's intelligent and subtle book is its inspiring portrait of the kind of people that a democratic information economy would produce. His vision implies that if we are allowed to lead absorbing, properly remunerated lives, we will likewise outgrow our addiction to consumerism and technology."
bestselling author of Turing's Cathedral - George Dyson
"Who Owns the Future? explains what’s wrong with our digital economy, and tells us how to fix it. Listen up!
The New Republic
Lanier’s career as a computer scientist is entwined in the central economic story of our time, the rapid advance of computation and networking. . . . [Who Owns the Future?] not only makes a convincing diagnosis of a widespread problem, but also answers a need for moonshot thinking.
Joe Nocera
The most important book I read [this year] . . . Provocative, unconventional ideas for ensuring that the inevitable dominance of software in every corner of society will be healthy instead of harmful.”
Financial Times
Lanier has a poet’s sensibility and his book reads like a hallucinogenic reverie, full of entertaining haiku-like observations and digressions.
Michiko Kakutani
Brilliant.
Carolyn Kellogg
"A smart, accessible book that takes a critical look at our online state of affairs and finds it out of balance."
USA Today
"This ambitious book is about how to help ordinary people survive and prosper at a time when advances in computer technology make it increasingly difficult for some people to find a job."
Salon
"One of the best skeptical books about the online world."
TechGenMag.com
”Lanier’s book mixes scholarly analysis with a series of intriguing ideas on how to take back control of our virtual identity.
London Evening Standard
"Lanier has a mind as boundless as the internet . . . [He is] the David Foster Wallace of tech."
bestselling author of Reamde and Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson
"Everyone complains about the Internet, but no one does anything about it . . . except for Jaron Lanier."
economist and author of The Nature of Technology - W. Brian Arthur
This book is rare. It looks at technology with an insider’s knowledge, wisdom, and deep caring about human beings. It’s badly needed.
author of The Master Switch - Tim Wu
"Who Owns the Future? is a deeply original and sometimes startling read. Lanier does not simply question the dominant narrative of our times, but picks it up by the neck and shakes it. A refreshing and important book that will make you see the world differently."
USA Today
"This ambitious book is about how to help ordinary people survive and prosper at a time when advances in computer technology make it increasingly difficult for some people to find a job."
Financial Times
Lanier has a poet’s sensibility and his book reads like a hallucinogenic reverie, full of entertaining haiku-like observations and digressions.
From the Publisher
Daringly original . . . Lanier’s sharp, accessible style and opinions make Who Owns the Future? terrifically inviting.”
“Lanier’s career as a computer scientist is entwined in the central economic story of our time, the rapid advance of computation and networking. . . . [Who Owns the Future?] not only makes a convincing diagnosis of a widespread problem, but also answers a need for moonshot thinking.”
"Lanier has a mind as boundless as the internet . . . [He is] the David Foster Wallace of tech."
“Lanier has a poet’s sensibility and his book reads like a hallucinogenic reverie, full of entertaining haiku-like observations and digressions.”
"Everyone complains about the Internet, but no one does anything about it . . . except for Jaron Lanier."
"Who Owns the Future? explains what’s wrong with our digital economy, and tells us how to fix it. Listen up!”
"Who Owns the Future? is a deeply original and sometimes startling read. Lanier does not simply question the dominant narrative of our times, but picks it up by the neck and shakes it. A refreshing and important book that will make you see the world differently."
“This book is rare. It looks at technology with an insider’s knowledge, wisdom, and deep caring about human beings. It’s badly needed.”
"One of the triumphs of Lanier's intelligent and subtle book is its inspiring portrait of the kind of people that a democratic information economy would produce. His vision implies that if we are allowed to lead absorbing, properly remunerated lives, we will likewise outgrow our addiction to consumerism and technology."
Kirkus Reviews
A sweeping look at why today's digital economy doesn't benefit the middle class and the ways that should change. If many tech books today offer dire, sky-is-falling warnings, then Lanier (You Are Not a Gadget, 2011, etc.) takes that idea a step further: The sky is falling and will continue to fall until it crushes the entire middle class under its weight. Until recently, new technology has always created new jobs, but in this new information economy, "[o]rdinary people ‘share,' while elite network presences generate unprecedented fortunes"--e.g., when Facebook purchased the photo-sharing service Instagram for nearly $1 billion. Lanier claims this trend is "setting up a situation where better technology in the long term just means more unemployment, or an eventual socialist backlash." Although the author opens with this provocative thesis, what follows is a meandering manifesto bogged down by its own terminology. Lanier includes an appendix listing "First Appearances of Key Terms" (many of which he coined), but readers may wonder why the author couldn't explain this jumble of economic theories and futuristic ideas in more lucid terms: Rather than create the word "antenimbosian," why not just say "before the advent of cloud computing"? This isn't to say that Lanier hasn't come up with some exceptional theories. For instance, he hypothesizes that self-driving cars "could be catastrophic" for the economy. Driverless taxis would rob new immigrants of jobs and deny them a "traditional entry ramp to economic sustenance." However, these concepts are so lost in a heap of digressions, interludes and fables--including the continued recurrence of a fictional seaside conversation between a citizen of the future and a "neuro-interfaced seagull"--that the signal-to-noise ratio may prove to be too much for all but the most dedicated tech readers. An assortment of complex and interesting ideas, buried under the weight of too much jargon.
