At the heart of this fascinating book is one of the central issues of our age – rendered more urgent by recent events in the Arab world. The question is: is the Internet a revolutionary innovation, something that will overthrow the established order? Or will it prove to have been only a disruptive technology, ancien regime will eventually conquer and oppress?
Faced with the upheavals triggered by network so far in economy, social life and politics, most people would probably say that the Internet is actually the sui generis. But Professor Wu is not so sure, and therein lies the significance of his book. If it is actually the Internet to escape the controlling embrace by companies or Governments, he argues, then it will be a historic first. For all other modern communications has technology-telephone, radio, cinema and TV – eventually fallen to these forces.
In order to determine his dissertation, on an ambitious start Wu history communications industries in the twentieth century. Running through it as a string of DNA is the story of how the Bell telephone company is changed to AT&T, one of the most frightening monopolies in history-which was eventually broken by the Federal Communications Commission, but has now effectively reconstituted itself. There is the story of broadcast radio, a promising medium captured by RCA and NBC with acceptance of the FCC. After that comes embedded movies and the tale of how a free, chaotic and creative industry was corners of a cartel of vertically companies under decades channelled all cinematic creativity through a series of narrow apertures.
These are great stories, and Wu tells them expertly. He is helped by the fact that his selected industries threw up a cast of memorable, charismatic and ruthless: Theodore Vail, for example, the genius who created the AT&T monster; David Sarnoff, who ran the RCA and NBC and dictated the pace at which radio technology developed; and Adolph Zukor, which created Paramount and showed what could be done, when a movie Corporation controls not only its stars, but also its sales channels.
It is especially striking is Wu's demonstration that the early years of the each new communication medium was accompanied by optimistic, hoping that it would improve society's ills. There was a period of openness, excitement and a sense of that nothing would ever be the same again.
But openness does not last. The closure is triggered by the arrival of the charismatic entrepreneurs at the point when new by the new technology starts to wane and consumers have developed a taste for quality, stability and higher production values than are supplied by the budding industry. New entrants to offer a better proposition: in telephony, for example, AT&T offered a single network and a guarantee that customers would get a dial tone when they took their handsets; NBC offered better radio programming with professional actors and better screenplay development; in the film confronted the new Moguls, with the creative chaos silent film company built vertically integrated companies, owned studios and cinemas, employed stars, as well as the supplied audio (and, later, colour) – in other words, a more attractive, uniform product. And consumers responded to these statements, which led to a positive feedback loop: the new entrepreneurs became more and more successful, their competitors fell away, and finally industry was captured by a monopoly (telephony) or a cartel (Hollywood).
It is what Wu calls the "cycle", with its progression "from somebody's hobby somebody's industry; from the jury-rigged contraption to slick production marvel; from a freely available channel to a tightly controlled by a single firm or a cartel-from open to closed system. It is such a common which seems inevitable, even though it would hardly have seemed so at dawn, any of the last century transformative technologies progression.
Apply cycle on the net? The answer is that no one knows – yet. But the risks are real, as we see rising modern equivalents of the charismatic Moguls old with their plans for "vertical integration" in the online world. Circle Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, currently the world's second most valuable Corporation and the man who wants to combine Hollywood's production engine with Apple's distribution system in order to take over everything.
Stakes, is also higher than they were in the twentieth century. Then published our media through a variety of non-intersecting channels. Today they all converge to a single network. If that can be captured, are the consequences for society and culture really frightening. Wu's book the great merit is that he forces us to confront the possibility in the hope that by being warned, we may be armed. Let us hope that he is entitled.
John Naughtons is a professor in the public understanding of the technology at the Open University.
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