On my list to reread -- Read this in the form of a somewhat scrambled audio book, due to the bother of working around DRM on an ebook I bought. This provided a delightful frisson as I read the book's accounts of other communication medias being taken over and locked down by corporations.

Anyway, I wish I could get everyone involved with say, Debian or Linux or general online free culture to read this. While it can be a bit of a slog in places, it provides a worldview that makes certain corporate maneuverings and ongoing shifts going on right now look very transparent. (Hello Google, Apple, Amazon, etc.) It shows how people trying to do what we're trying to do have failed, and failed, and failed yet again. This is valuable.

I was not fully convinced by its argument that the internet (and, though it doesn't mention it specifically, free software) is no different than radio, tv, telephone, movies, cable. But, as it points out, the wild-eyed visionary ones always think they have something new and world-changing.

Wu's concluding proposal to prevent the cycle he identifies, was also sadly, not to me very convincing. At least, its prospects look unlikely in the US.