The Master Switch

This unusual book is not a history of mass communications systems, not an ideological polemic, and not a guide to navigating network offerings (internet, TV, radio, movies, telephone), although it offers a bit of all of these. It is instead a grand theory of communications technology and how, in our American society, these technologies have tended to follow a predictable, and often fatal, Cycle.

THE CYCLE

First, there is initial excitement and chaos before the society in general and big companies in particular discover the potential of the new technology, but individual entrepreneurs develop innovative and useful products. Next, companies offering the technology grow larger, with smaller companies disappearing, and there is competition for customers. But a few companies dominate and begin to swallow up the others. What had been an "open" technology becomes "closed" and new players find insurmountable barriers; innovation is rare and the technology enters a period of central control and stability. A monopoly company or a few dominant players own the market until government action breaks them up or other disruptive technology eats them up. The Cycle then begins anew.

Wu begins his book with a tale of AT&T and its chief in 1916, Theodore Vail. His company controlled phone service in the US through its "long lines" which connected cities and regions of the country, bringing instant communication from one place to another through the telephone system. Vail believed passionately in "one phone company" as the way to eliminate duplication of lines, to avoid what happened in the railroad business where duplicate tracks had been laid for the multiple competing railroad companies. Instead, AT&T would extend its phone lines everywhere, controlling the phone business but also providing an efficient service at reasonable rates. Vail took that responsibility seriously, making a deal with the government, in effect, by agreeing to service all homes and business in the US in exchange for having a monopoly.

This worked very well, providing Americans with the phone services they needed and wanted. But AT&T was not content to just own the lines; it also owned the right to dictate what could be connected to those lines. You bought your phone from them and if you wanted a second phone, you bought that from them too and paid a monthly fee for having it. At first, there were other local phone companies, but those mostly disappeared as AT&T bought them out, and they were never able to connect to the "long lines." But life was less confusing for the customer than the situation we have today, with so many ways to make a phone call. I confess to sometimes feeling nostalgic for the days of "Ma Bell" and the efficient service she provided, when there was only "the phone company" and not a cacophony of confusing choices.

COMMUNICATIONS REVOLUTIONS

The story of AT&T, its ultimate breakup by the government in 1984, is woven throughout the book, as the author believes it "laid the foundation for every important communications revolution since…". AT&T had become so rigid and arrogant that it blocked every innovation involving connecting something to its equipment. Its own engineers had invented the answering machine back in the 1950s, but the public never got it because the company thought it a threat. They never would have allowed modems to be connected to phone lines, with anyone's data traveling those lines, yet that is the basis for computers talking to each other, which led to the internet and all the new ways of meeting, of buying, and of expressing ourselves that it has brought to our lives.

But the Cycle does not just apply to phone services, but also to telegraph, radio, movies, computers, and the internet. The author is particularly interested in whether the Cycle can be stopped now, so we can keep the internet "open" to all who want to put up a website, participate in online comment, and search for information on any topic. He is an advocate for "net neutrality," by which he means that no one entity should attain control over the network lines and dictate which services and people can use those lines, or allocate more use to some than to others.

The history of those other technologies also illustrates how the Cycle works. The telegraph (in the guise of Western Union) once controlled mass communications through its alliance with Associated Press, which fed stories to local newspapers via telegraph wire. Radio was an amazing technology developed by amateurs who were in awe of its power to reach a mass audience. But once the government, in the guise of the FCC, recognized a need to bring some order to the radio chaos and began carving up the airwaves, making deals with companies eager to exploit this new way to reach the masses, the amateur enthusiasts were squeezed out. Television was almost from the beginning under the control of the same companies that dominated radio. It pretty much bypassed the chaotic early stage.

HOLLYWOOD AS CONTROLLER

The book offers an interesting point of view about Hollywood, and how it too came under the influence of a few powerful companies that put together the studio system back in the 1940s, controlling the industry vertically by owning the means of production as well as the theaters. Movie production, like phone service, had to be broken up by the government which told the studios they could not own theaters or tell theaters what they could show.

I had not thought about the sameness of the movies of that era, as so many of them were so well done. I personally love the musicals from the 1940s and 1050s and have watched Singing in the Rain more times than I can count and always enjoy it. Yet the system that brought us these wonderful movies operated under some onerous restrictions, all designed to retain control for the movie moguls of that era. While many people decry too much government interference, the author powerfully makes the point that private control is just as bad as public control, and more difficult to eradicate. The movie industry had its own form of censorship that dictated what you could and could not show. This later came to TV, where us older folks remember when TV shows could not show even married couples occupying the same bed, and when Lucy (on the beloved I Love Lucy show) was having a baby, actors were forbidden from saying the word "pregnant." Well, that certainly changed!

THE WONDERFUL CHAOS OF A NEW TECHNOLOGY

But there is a further reason why this book resonated so much with me. I was involved in the birth of a communications revolution that mirrors most of what Tim Wu suggests in this book. Back in the late 1970s, my husband David brought home a TRS-80 microcomputer that changed our lives. He (and thousands of other people who bought this amazing machine) taught himself to program and programmed a word processor for it that we went on to sell worldwide in our own small company, which began in the basement of our modest home in Detroit. In the beginning, there was no software, no "apps," no classes in programming for these new upstart machines, and no understanding by the computer giants of the day (actually, there was one giant, IBM) that these "personal computers" would one day replace the behemoth machines that only big companies could afford. The personal computer industry, which ultimately spawned large corporations like Microsoft, Apple and Adobe, was born in garages and basements by people who were simply thrilled by the potential of microchip technology and wanted to explore its capability.

As David and I got older and realized most people know little or nothing about what I call "the hidden history of personal computing," we wrote a book about our experiences, recounting our own story and interviewing microcomputer pioneers who shaped this early period. (The book is Priming the Pump: How TRS-80 Enthusiasts Helped Spark the PC Revolution.) Yes, there were thousands of companies (usually consisting of programmers and a few people to answer the phone and ship orders) selling products that early adopters wanted, but eventually being bought out, forced out, or simply becoming obsolete as newer PC models with newer microprocessors required new programs. Programs tailored for one microcomputer typically would not run on another, so our program, created for the Z80 microprocessor, would not run on the Apple or the Commodore. Eventually, IBM discovered what was happening and, realizing microcomputers were a threat to its business, came into the market with the IBM PC. Now we were dealing with a giant, and the beautiful chaos of that early period was over.

Wu makes the point, so obvious to me, that the early adopters of every new communications technology begin with an idealistic view of its ability to "change everything." Mostly, these pioneers are not motivated by money, although they don't mind making some off their work, but by the intoxicating thrill of exploring the technology's potential, of seeing the future before it happens, even while being absorbed in the present moment of discovery. No one exemplifies this more than Steve Wozniak, creator of the legendary Apple I and the popular Apple II. Woz was a technology pioneer, while Steve Jobs was basically a huckster (a very savvy one!).

OPEN NETWORK OR CLOSED NETWORK?

Wu has many things to say about companies that are "open" and those that are "closed" and Steve Jobs' Apple, Inc. is firmly in the "closed" category. I remember the early day when Apple, under the influence of Jobs, did indeed make programming for the Apple models more difficult, and, over the years, Apple has kept tight control over what runs on their machines. And yet, Apple makes superb products! They not only have the best user interfaces, they also have the best customer service and their products are actually addicting to those who buy them. My daughter once had her iPod stolen and, despite being broke, scraped up enough money to buy another right away because she could not live without this gadget. She also has an iPhone she uses for many tasks that once had nothing to do with phones. Like Ma Bell, Apple has found that keeping control means delivering a quality product.

A closed company concentrates on making money by giving the majority what they want, while an open company treats all comers, even oddball minorities, the same. Wu also gives us an example of an "open" company, Google. Google has become a huge enterprise, but it does not make physical products and it serves mainly as a switchboard, connecting requesters with information over the internet. But its business model is to be an impartial switchboard, connecting anyone to any relevant information, never discriminating or closing the pipeline to anyone or anything. Google's vulnerability is the possible moves by the big internet players to control the pipeline. Like AOL that once ruled in the world of "being online" but was slain by the opening up of the internet which made their "walled off" content irrelevant, can Google be killed too?

WILL THE INTERNET FOLLOW THE CYCLE?

There are many stories of the workings of the Cycle in Tim Wu's book, but he waits to the last chapter to get to his real point: What is the fate of the internet? Will it too come under the sway of one giant company who will control "the master switch?" Wu argues that this need not happen, that government regulation, but also and more importantly, public acceptance and desire for an "open" system will keep the internet as a "superhighway" that all can travel. The very design of the internet, with its packets of data moving over multiple connectors, will make it more difficult for one entity to control. The many uses of what was once AT&T's "long lines" and the power inherent in this connectedness to affect our daily lives is too important to allow a monopoly that would certainly restrict its uses.

The information we can access profoundly affects our beliefs and our worldview. Every brutal dictator who has ever existed has tried to control mass communications, to restrict what people can read and see. As people realize the importance of "net neutrality" they will demand an open internet. Or will they? Time will tell if Tim Wu has prophesied correctly.

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The Master Switch by Tim Wu

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