WHO OWNS THE FUTURE?

Narrator Pete Simonelli's personable, evenly modulated style moves the material in this audiobook as if it were on a conveyor belt. Each building block in the book's thesis--that the Internet is creating vast income disparity--arrives discretely and clearly. That's no small feat considering that, at times, the author's theories are difficult to comprehend and his proposed solutions hard to believe. But there's plenty of thought-provoking, inventive stuff here, and it's hard to knock Lanier's core belief that nothing is really "free" on the Internet--we're all paying for Twitter, Bing, MapQuest, and all the other Siren Servers (mega companies that dominate an Internet business sector)--and the bill for all of it will soon come due. R.W.S. © AudioFile 2013, Portland, Maine [Published: NOVEMBER 2013]