The New York Times Reviews ‘The Tangled Web We Weave’ ⇥ nytimes.com

Margaret O’Mara, New York Times:

Fast-forward five decades, and Big Tech is eating the world. During this year of pandemic and protest, the combined value of the American tech sector has topped that of the entire European stock market, and the products of its five biggest companies — Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft — become ever more inescapable features of life and work. Severe market consolidation has prompted increasingly vigorous bipartisan calls to rein in the excesses of the companies built on the internet. Regulation is essential, lawmakers argue, both to restore fairness to the online economy and to protect democracy itself.

Without letting Silicon Valley giants off the hook, James Ball argues that the fix is not so simple. The problem isn’t just the business practices of a few companies, he explains in his nimble and persuasive new book, “The Tangled Web We Weave.” It is the entire system.

This is a short review — the book appears pretty concise anyhow — but this is another addition to my reading list.