April 18th 2017
ISBN-13: 9780316275743
MOVE FasT and Break Things
How Facebook, Google, and Amazon Cornered Culture and Undermined Democracy
A stinging polemic that traces the destructive monopolization of the Internet by Google, Facebook and Amazon, and that proposes a new future for musicians, journalists, authors and filmmakers in the digital age.
“Jonathan Taplin’s Move Fast and Break Things, a rock and roll memoir cum internet history cum artists’ manifesto, provides a bracing antidote to corporate triumphalism—and a reminder that writers and musicians need a place at the tech table and, more to the point, a way to make a decent living.”
Move Fast and Break Things tells the story of how a small group of libertarian entrepreneurs began in the 1990s to hijack the original decentralized vision of the Internet, in the process creating a set of monopoly firms—Facebook, Amazon and Google—that now determine the future of the music, film, television, publishing and news industries.
Taplin offers a succinct and powerful history of how we got to this point. He begins with a small group of libertarian entrepreneurs, Peter Thiel and Larry Page among them, who in the 1990s began to hijack the original decentralized version of the Internet. Taplin show how these firms and individuals began to shape online life in their own image: tolerating piracy of books, music and film while at the same time promoting opaque business practices and subordinating privacy of individual users to create the surveillance marketing monoculture in which we now live.
The enormous profits that have come with this concentration of power tell their own story. Since 2001, newspaper and music revenues have fallen by 70%, book publishing, film and television profits have also fallen dramatically. Revenues at Google in this same period grew from $400 million to $74.5 Billion. Google’s YouTube today controls 60% of the streaming audio business and pays only 11% of the streaming audio revenues. More creative content is being consumed that ever before, but less revenue is actually flowing to creators and owners of the content.
If you think this is a problem only for musicians, or journalists, you are wrong. With the reallocation of money to monopoly platforms comes a shift in power. Google, Facebook and Amazon now enjoy political power on par with Big Oil and Big Pharma, which makes finding solutions to this problem even more difficult.
But Taplin has answers. Move Fast and Break Things offers a vital, forward-thinking way for how artists everywhere can reclaim their audiences with knowledge of the past and determination to work together. Using his own half century career as a music and film producer and early pioneer of streaming video online, Taplin offers solutions that would allow us all to reimagine the design of the World Wide Web and specifically our interaction with the firms that dominate it.
“Jonathan Taplin, more than anyone I know, can articulate the paralyzing complexities that have arisen from the intertwining of the tech and music industries. He counters the catastrophic implications for musicians with solutions and inspiration for a renaissance. He shows the way for artists to reclaim and reinvent subversion, rather than be in servitude to Big Tech. Every musician and every creator should read this book.”
“This is an essential book and singular hybrid—lucid alternate history of our digital transformation, juicy memoir of a pioneering culture industry player, and bracing polemic on how our culture was hijacked and might still be redeemed. And my reaction to Move Fast and Break Things was a three-part hybrid too—provoked, enlightened and inspired. Thanks, Jon Taplin.”
“Move Fast and Break Things goes on my bookshelf beside a few other indispensable signposts in the maze of the 21st Century—The Technological Society by Jacques Ellul and The Medium is the Massage by Marshall McLuhan. I pray the deepest and highest prayer I can get to that this clarion warning is heeded. The survival of our species is at stake.”
“Jonathan Taplin’s new book could not be more timely. Twenty years after the initial euphoria of the Web, ten years after the invention of social media, it’s time to stop breaking things and start thinking seriously about the new habitat we’re creating. Move Fast and Break Things provides a blueprint for a future that humans can live in.”
“Jonathan Taplin’s brave new book unmasks a grid of high tech corporate domination that didn’t have to be but that now threatens democracy itself. Like the great muckrakers of a century ago. Taplin explains clearly how that domination works and challenges us to do something about it. Our future may well depend on whether we heed him. ”
“Move Fast and Break Things is the definitive exploration of the platforms, apps and digital destinations that have emerged over the last 30 years, and is an absolute must-read for anyone who wants to gain a little savvy in the internet era—and learn a little bit about the culture of the last three decades while they’re at it.”
“Taplin’s broader explanation of the upheaval in the music and media industries is illuminating.”
“A bracing, unromantic account of how the internet was captured...a timely and useful book.”
“A breakthrough, must-read book...a tour de force—a compelling, story-driven work focusing on the handful of men who have shaped and essentially taken over the massive tech industry. Along the way, Taplin tells his own personal story with charm and insight. If you want to understand what happened to our country and where tech will take us in the era of Trump, put aside some time to read this book. It will take your breath away.”
“One can only hope that the growing chorus of voices, now joined by Taplin, will cause Google and Facebook to follow through more vigorously on their efforts to address the fake news debacle.... Most every creator of music and film should welcome the clarion call of Taplin’s book.”
More praise for MOVE FAST AND BREAK THINGS by Jonathan Taplin
“A fascinating assertion.”
—Fortune
“Compelling. . . I find his arguments to be well-crafted and thought provoking.”
—InisdeHigherEd
“[A] darker counterpoint to some of the celebratory writing about Silicon Valley.”
—New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice selection
“It is also useful to read a darker counterpoint, which argues that the radical libertarian ideology and monopolistic greed of many Silicon Valley entrepreneurs helped to decimate the livelihood of musicians and is now undermining the communal idealism of the early internet.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“Most interesting when Taplin tugs at the roots of the digital economy’s libertarian ethos.”
—The Los Angeles Review of Books
“Taplin writes eloquently and passionately about the human toll of the Internet age… This book smartly lays out the peril of a time when we are controlled by the forces of Amazon, Facebook, Google and Apple and the libertarian entrepreneurs who make billions while we mindlessly follow their script.”
—Jon Friedman, Marketwatch
“Taplin is uniquely poised to deliver us ‘Move Fast and Break Things,’ a relentless critique that seeks to answer the above question of why the internet has hindered, rather than helped, those trying to make a living in the arts.”
—New York Daily News
“A stinging polemic that traces the destructive monopolisation of the internet by Google and Facebook.”
—The Australian
“Comprehensive… Where Taplin excels is by putting all this into the context of the changing global economy.”
—The Times of London
“An engaging book… illuminating.”
—The Hill
“A scathing indictment of these tech companies’ greed and arrogance.”
—The Guardian
“The book to read now.”
—The American Conservative
“An impassioned new book… Taplin is at his strongest when he pulls back the curtain on vague and lofty terms such as “digital disruption” to reveal the effects on individual artists… His prose is bold… his overall point is an important one.”
—The Washington Post
“Taplin's topic is as important as his arguments are enlightening.”
—Shelf Awareness
“Part memoir and part manifesto calling for content creators to embrace antimonopoly.”
—ProMarket
“A radical remedy”
—The Economist
“Jonathan Taplin’s new book is an eye-opening portrait of the adversaries in the war over control of new ideas and big data, and what it will take to win.”
—IPWatchdog
“A necessary book that shows how the Internet revolution has damaged the way we interact as human beings, along with democracy itself.”
—The Nation
“Taplin brings an informed perspective to his task, and an idiosyncratic background…. [his] broader explanation of the upheaval in the music and media industries is illuminating.”
—The Wall Street Journal
“A solid qualitative and quantitative analysis… most every creator of music and film that should welcome the clarion call of Taplin’s book.”
—Forbes
“A breakthrough, must-read book… a tour de force… If you want to understand what has happened to our country and where tech will take us in the era of Trump, put aside some time to read this book. It will take your breath away.”
—AlterNet
“An excellent new book… Taplin makes a forceful and persuasive case that companies like Google and Facebook could employ their powerful artificial intelligence programs to prevent the infringement of existing copyright laws."
—The Chicago Tribune
“Jonathan Taplin has a bone to pick with Silicon Valley, and it is a big one.”
—Huffington Post
“Taplin outlines in devastating detail how the digital economy has hurt creative types… a punch to the gut of Silicon Valley’s self-righteous posture.”
–Fast Company
“An absolute must-read for anyone who wants to gain a little savvy in the internet era.”
—Newsweek
“A bracing, unromantic account of how the internet was captured… a timely and useful book. Taplin’s book ranges widely over the digital landscape and ventures where most commentators rarely go.”
—The Guardian (US)
“A compelling work with a clear central vision and a cumulative power that is convincing overall… there is a lot at stake in Move Fast and Break Things, and a real urgency to do something about it.”
—Steve Haruch, Chapter 16
“Required reading… a nuanced look at the downside of what is glibly tossed around as ‘disruption’ by various cyber-messianic blowhards.”
—Charles Pierce, Esquire.com
“An important new book… [Taplin is] a smart and thoughtful student of the cultural landscape.”
—Peter Bart, Deadline Hollywood
“Insightful analysis… Taplin proves a keen, thorough look at the present and future of Americans’ lives as influenced and manipulated by the technology behemoths on which they’ve come to depend. His work is certainly food for thought…”
—Publishers Weekly
“A powerful argument for reducing inequality and revolutionizing how we use the Web for the benefit of the many rather than the few.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“[Taplin presents] a necessary challenge to conventional wisdom about modern technology and how it affects all our lives.”
—Booklist
“Jonathan Taplin’s brave new book unmasks a grid of high tech corporate domination that didn’t have to be but that now threatens democracy itself. Like the great muckrakers of a century ago. Taplin explains clearly how that domination works and challenges us to do something about it. Our future may well depend on whether we heed him.”
--Professor Sean Wilentz, Author of The Rise of American Democracy
“In a remarkably innovative and precise amalgam of political economy and cultural criticism, Jonathan Taplin delivers a devastating critique of our “knowledge-based” economy. This book is a profound analysis of the devastating impact of the internet economy on the promise of American life.”
—Benjamin Schwarz, national editor, The American Conservative, former national editor, The Atlantic.
“Jonathan Taplin, more than anyone I know, can articulate the paralyzing complexities that have arisen from the intertwining of the tech and music industries. He counters the catastrophic implications for musicians with solutions and inspiration for a renaissance. He shows the way for artists to reclaim and reinvent that subversion, rather than be in servitude to Big Tech. Every musician and every creator should read this book.”
—Rosanne Cash, Grammy Award–winning singer and songwriter
“MOVE FAST AND BREAK THINGS, a rock-and-roll memoir cum Internet history cum artists’ manifesto, provides a bracing antidote to corporate triumphalism—and a reminder that musicians and writers need a place at the tech table and, more to the point, a way to make a decent living.”
—Jeffrey Toobin, author of American Heiress
“MOVE FAST AND BREAK THINGS goes on my bookshelf beside a few other indispensable signposts in the maze of life in the 21st century—The Technological Society by Jacques Ellul and The Medium Is the Massage by Marshall McLuhan. I pray the deepest and highest prayer I can get to that this clarion warning is heeded. The survival of our species is at stake.”
—T Bone Burnett
“This is an essential book and singular hybrid—lucid alternate history of our digital transformation, juicy memoir of a pioneering culture-industry player, and bracing polemic on how our culture was hijacked and might still be redeemed. And my reaction to Move Fast and Break Things was a three-part hybrid too—provoked, enlightened, and inspired. Thanks, Jon Taplin.”
—Kurt Andersen, host of NPR’s Studio 360