Lanier summons pointed criticism to the technological optimist phylosophy that permeates digital startups and established digital business alike. His critique is not well organised but is still a relatively unique perspective which one needs to consider for futurology.
I rate the book less for its overall quality but for those key thinking points which should be evaluated while we look at technological and cultural development. Its a book I find myself arguing against but these arguments lead me to understand the issues. ( )

This book is a little hard to judge. It does not really break new ground (promoting micro-payments, ownership of your own data; pointing out the true bargain we make when we "get" things for "free"; pointing out the lopsidedness of current views of technological advancement of efficiency; and so forth) but it does tie all these together in a conceptual/social-economic framework

In particular, it argues against the current "free" model of the web: users exchange their information (demographics, location, shopping habits, appliance repair expertise, how to change a car headlight, restaurant reviews... book reviews) for "free" services such as Facebook, YouTube, or GoodReads. This seems like a great deal. But: over the medium to long term, this shrinks the economy. There are fewer car headlamps to change, less need to pay book reviewers, and (in Lanier's favorite example) fewer paid musicians. So you give away your information/expertise/time for free, and get something for free, and the "Siren Server" (in Lanier's coinage) makes money; but *only* the "Siren Server" (YouTube, Facebook, etc.) makes money. This all might look fine, until the expertise being given away is your's, and hence in the longer term the economy starts to unravel. This is the direction that Silicon Valley (which he uses to mean both Silicon Valley, but also the larger technophile/libertarian culture) is and wants to move in.

There is a lot more to this book, as well. For instance, the repeated (and, to me agreeable) assertion that the economy is not some thing outside of us, with some innate, external purpose like efficiency; that we can choose to make human contributions "worthwhile" -to make the economy humanistic- or continue down the path of making everything "free" and hence human contributions worth nothing. Note that this is similar to the main point, but from a different perspective.

Some cons: Lack of conciseness, a bit of a choppy composition, a bit too personal (as we are being asked, essentially, to change the world/future.)

The book has the feel, a bit, of a manifesto: it doesn't try to be academic or scientific. Or perhaps its better to say it feels, a bit, like science fiction, in the best possible sense: possibilities and difficulties are being laid out in a narrative fashion. In either case, it is a bit vague: he does proposes some partial solutions, while acknowledging that they are not fleshed out, as well as some -not sure what I want to call them- target values.

To be honest, I think I am still processing the book a bit; while it has it's issues, that right there is a very good thing. ( )

Some reflections are ok, others are not very convincing. Too pretentious, too long. ( )

Gave up after 25 pages. Don't know what people see in this guy. ( )

I'm sympathetic to the author's complaints but the central idea of a utopian future that runs on microtransations paid to everyone based on the fact the they are alive and generate data is full of holes and self-contradictions. In the same book the author complains about how digitisable domains fall foul of a fat tail "superstar" distribution where only ones at the very top get any money at all but fails to see that this is what he proposes.

I think the most telling passage is when he mistakenly describes the Morlocks and the Eloi from the Time Machine by switching their ancestry around to conform to his views (claiming Morlocks descended from the rich and Eloi from the poor). What editor would let something like this slip through? The author might be a visionary but seeing what can be might be interfering with seeing what is. He genuinely believes the digital economy is the biggest obstacle and threat and traditional problems of resources, wars etc. don't come into it.

He also pre-emptively admits that he hasn't really worked out any details and then goes on to list random minutiae of his proposed system but at the same time admits no critique of the technical or logical feasibility because the details will work themselves out correctly naturally. How do you engage that kind of discussion?

There are also a lot of passive aggressive comments on the economy shutting down his industries of choice and this must be the first time I've seen someone use "open source/linux/wikipedia types" as an insult. Then again he does mention he works for Microsoft but I think that's a bit beyond towing the company line. ( )