Read Write Own: Building the Next Era of the Internet, reviewed

We review Chris Dixon‘s new book Read Write Own: Building the Next Era of the Internet, see more about the book here.

Read Write Own: Building the Next Era of the Internet, reviewed

This book has a great cover, and is well put together, with clear progression of explaining the historical context, how it has lead us to where we are now. All of this scanned well and is definitely a good primer to bring you up to speed if you are unclear about how we have got to where we are now. The bookmarks and the gifted NFT are very cool too. If you know nothing about this area then this is a really good book for you.

The one thing that we felt that the reader was left wanting for, was a more specific outline of where the future opportunities are. Yes blockchain has potential, yes tokenisation hold opportunities, but is this what was promised in the early circa 2017 ICO boom, and then, several years later, with the De-Fi euphoria vibe too. Right now too, Bitcoin and Ether among others are on the charge again. However is this based on real reasons for growth, the imminent halving among other factors, or just the latest wave on the crypto roller coaster.

Potentially the growth is a recognition of the actual applications and development of the tools to make this technology now viable. With this book, from such an informed inside, we would have liked more details about the future of the internet could be like.  It is in this area that we would have liked more details on what the future developments might look like. This might be the impossible question to answer, but, for a book that got a lot right, this area seemed slightly bloodless.

More about the book:

The internet of today is a far cry from its early promise of a decentralized, democratic network of innovation, connection, and freedom. In the past decade, it has fallen under the control of a small group of powerful companies like Apple, Google, Facebook, and others. In Read Write Own, tech visionary Chris Dixon argues that the dream of an open network for fostering creativity and entrepreneurship doesn’t have to die.

In fact, it can, and must, be saved with blockchain networks, which create a radical new way to design fair and freely accessible internet services that put users in charge. He distinguishes the blockchain movement, which aims to provide a solid foundation for everything from social networks and marketplaces to artificial intelligence products and immersive virtual worlds, from the cryptocurrency speculation that it is unfortunately lumped together with—a distinction he calls “the computer vs. the casino.”

With lucid and compelling prose—and drawing from firsthand observations, mental models, and experiences from a twenty–five-year career in the software industry—Dixon shows how the internet has undergone three distinct eras, bringing us to the critical moment we’re in today. The first was the “read era,” circa the 1990s, in which early networks democratized information.

In the “read-write era,” during the mid-2000s, corporate networks democratized publishing. We are now in the midst of the “read-write-own” era, sometimes called web3, in which blockchain networks have begun to democratize ownership, granting power and economic benefits to communities of users, not just corporations.

Read Write Own is a must-read for anyone—internet users, business leaders, artists creators, entrepreneurs, the tech-curious—who wants to understand where we’ve been and where we’re going. It provides a vision for a better internet, a clarion call for anyone looking to navigate or build the future, and a playbook for getting there.

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