It was interesting to read this book after reading Alice Marwick's Status Update, an ehtnogrpahic study of the cool kids who brought us social media while harwiring their values into it. Taylor's book is not based on fieldwork but is a sustained argument for separating culture and cultural production from the business model of the Internet, which (as Bruce Schneier has accurately said) is ubiquitous surveillance. Almost all of the book is an exploration of what's gone wrong in the shift from an old information economy to a new one which largely is fed by cultural production donated in exchange for attention, all in the service of gathering personal information that can be aggregated, resold, and mined. In the process she raises good questions, but also sometimes unfairly characterizes opponents. She has what seems to me an unaccountably uncharitable view of Lawrence Lessig in particular and the free culture movement generally, which I think she gets wrong, The book concludes with a "defense of the commons" that draws a distinction between "free" culture (which she feels is either deceptive advertising, exploitation of artists, or both) and "fair" culture - seeking a "fair trade" movement that will reward labor appropriately. She draws on the scholarship of Elinor Ostrom to imagine a cultural commons that (like the functioning commons Ostrom studied) is carefully regulated and balanced for sustainability. returnreturnBeyond that general call for action - to reject Silicon Valley's business model for the Internet and to oppose commodification of culture and the concentration of media ownership - she hasn't got many concrete suggestions. That may not be surprising,as the problem she's addressing is devilishly hard, but I was hoping for more specific ideas beyond using fair trade and local food movements as possible models. There are projects out there that have found ways to sustain neat things. There are even some social institutions that have defended these values for a long time - cough, libraries cough. Taylor is good at exposing the problems with assuming the Internet will set us free, though at times flings the tar on her brush a bit indiscriminately, but I would have liked to hear more about the alternatives. A handful of closely-read case studies of alternative approaches would be welcome. As it is, phrases in the title - "the people's platform" and "taking back power and culture" - turn out to be unfulfilled promises. To borrow another book's title, when will there be good news?