Na The Cult of the Amateur en Digital Vertigo, publiceerde internetondernemer en auteur Andrew Keen deze maand zijn derde boek: The Internet is Not the Answer. Maar als internet niet het antwoord is, wat is dan de vraag? Andrew Keen laat zich deze weken graag interviewen o.a. door Mike Butcher op DLD15 of zoals hierboven door Leo Laporte in zijn show Twit TV. In het kort komt het er op neer dat Andrew Keen het huidige internet niet geschik vindt als het operating system voor de 21ste eeuw. Op The Next Web komt Andrew Keen met 10 redenen waarom het huidige internet niet het antwoord is:

1. Rather than redistributing power and wealth, it has created supersized 21st century monopolists like Amazon & Google.
2. Instead of creating jobs, it has created $19 billion Internet startups like WeChat that only employ 55 people.
3. As the Snowden NSA leaks have revealed, rather than creating a healthily transparent society, it is is destroying our privacy and enabling both governments and private companies to spy on us all the time.
4. Rather than democratizing wealth, the Silicon Valley economy of multi billion dollar startups like Airbnb is compounding the chasm between rich and poor.
5. Rather than a cultural renaissance, Online piracy and the “free” content of the blogosphere and social media have decimated the music, newspaper, photography and book industries.
6. Rather than advancing democracy, anonymous networks like Reddit and 4Chan have empowered the rule of the mob.
7. Rather than improving tolerance, self-broadcasting networks like Twitter and Facebook are compounding an online pandemic of racism, sexism and bullying.
8. Rather than a cultural renaissance, it has sparked an selfie-centric era of invidious narcissism on networks like Instagram.
9. The so-called “sharing economy” of networks is actually the selfish economy of ethically challenged entrepreneurs like Uber CEO Travis Kalanick.
10. It puts us all to “work” in “data factories” like Tumblr and Pinterest for free as they grow rich from the data we provide them about ourselves every day.

Ik begin steeds meer begrip te krijgen voor het standpunt van Andrew Keen.