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3.0 

The Big Switch

By Nicholas Carr
The Big Switch by Nicholas Carr digital book - Fable

Publisher Description

“Magisterial…Draws an elegant and illuminating parallel between the late-19th-century electrification of America and today’s computing world.” —Salon

Hailed as “the most influential book so far on the cloud computing movement” (Christian Science Monitor), The Big Switch makes a simple and profound statement: Computing is turning into a utility, and the effects of this transition will ultimately change society as completely as the advent of cheap electricity did. In a new chapter for this edition that brings the story up-to-date, Nicholas Carr revisits the dramatic new world being conjured from the circuits of the “World Wide Computer.”

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The Big Switch Reviews

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naddie.reads

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“This book is an interesting journey that tells us how the internet is made possible through the invention of mass electricity, which enabled electricity to be generated on a large scale that it was made profitable to be supplied to the mass public. The availability of electricity had enabled the industrial revolution to take place, and that in turn changes the way we work and live. Just as electricity had been converted from being a commodity that only big industrial companies can afford to a relatively cheap service that we can all enjoy, Carr explains how the internet and the world wide web are fast becoming a public utility as well. Carr makes a great point that the technological breakthroughs may have been the vehicle for the internet & WWW to emerge into existence, but it's ultimately economics that decided how well this new technology will survive. It was only a few decades ago that we rely on letters and written words to communicate, but now the internet has made such things seem primitive with the advent of internet video calls and instant messaging apps. Since we are still in the midst of this technological breakthrough, so there's no telling how such progress will affect civilization in the long run. The internet has already changed the way we live and work, and distractions abound when the internet is given free rein. We are already seeing the cost of it, with how easy information and fake news are being used to control what we think, and only time will tell what the internet will end up being -- a useful tool, or one that enslaves us? As Carr astutely noted, "Not only will the Internet tend to divide people with different views, in other words, it will also tend to magnify the differences". The internet has given birth to a different set of difficulties in how we relate to one another, and the cost it will wreak on our civil and personal liberties is still indeterminable. It is up to us to exercise our judgment to the best of our ability to ensure that the internet does not wholly consume us and use it only as a tool instead of an extra appendage. If you've ever wondered how the invention of electricity could give birth to the internet and the world wide web as we know it to do, this book is a highly recommended read. Informational and fascinating all at once.”

About Nicholas Carr

Nicholas Carr is the author of The Shallows, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and four other acclaimed books. A former executive editor of the Harvard Business Review, he writes for the Atlantic, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal. He lives in Oregon.

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