Time has come for me to do something new: blogging. It has become something extremely common, but if one thinks of what is the latest, I am quite sure I will not be the only one left behind. We could consider us the most creative generation with so many novelties in such short time, but reaching this point was not done in the natural way some might believe. On this subject, Tim’s Wu “The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires” brings to light many thought-provoking ideas. One of his most surprising claims is that innovation does not follow its natural course but has to enter a battle to death from its infancy.
Wu points out that “whatever technological reality we live with is the result of tooth-and-claw industrial combat” (25). Throughout the book, he gives numerous examples to support this idea. One very extreme example is Edwin Armstrong’s invention of FM radio. “The defining mogul” (125), David Sarnoff, the central figure in American broadcasting, understood immediately the merits of this invention and how it could disrupt the AM economy, and particularly his control over the radio industry. With the help of the government, Sarnoff crushed any “disruptive” innovation from 1926 to 1946. It is indeed striking how Sarnoff, a visionary himself could limit free speech, choices, and progress all for the sake of profit.
In the history of feature films, the clash between the independents from Hollywood and the East Coast Trust could easily become a plot for one of today’s blockbusters. The epic movies we nowadays associate with and expect from Hollywood can hardly be imagined in the past when films were cheap, short, with no celebrities, and void of any meaningful ideas and images. Here some might argue that the movie industry has moved from one extreme to the other, relying too much on remarkable visual effects rather than content, but still we would not have got the chance to see our blue avatars.
The extent to which an industry would go to preserve itself is reflected in AT&T’s decision not to develop magnetic band as it could potentially limit the use of telephones. This situation makes one wonder whether some discoveries could have been made sooner and, if so, what impact would they have had on the course of history. Maybe we would all coexist with robots capable of thinking for themselves…
It is very interesting how one has to go back into the past to see the future of technological advances. Right now it has come the time for all these inventions that redefine our ways of expressing. The question that arises is how long the information industry will remain open to innovation from any outsider, or “outlaw” in Wu’s words.
I had forgotten, when reading Wu's book, that BASF, not an American firm, brought magnetic tape to the world.
ReplyDeleteThere are some really interesting photos of the early German tape-recording devices here: http://homepage.mac.com/oldtownman/recording/tape.html
Note too that I see an irony in BASF's beating us to market. It enjoyed a monopoly status in many areas of the German chemicals industry (even DuPont could not claim that in America).
I wonder how other nations, with different relationships between government and industry, have fared as innovators? The Japanese car giants, for instance, had cozy relationships with the government, with Toyota being the biggest, yet they never failed to innovate (this is why Detroit lost so many US drivers, permanently, in the 1970s and 80s).
Had AT&T even one competitor in the 1930s, the history of telecommunications in America would have been different and, in my opinion, better for innovation.
This may seem insignificant, but you touch on the movie industry moving from "one extreme to the other". I love this thought, quite frankly.
ReplyDeleteIt made me wonder if not only the movie industry, but other communications industries had this rather bipolar switch. I think you could argue that the creation of AT&T too, moved in extremes. One would think that after Bell's experience fighting monopolies that he may be more sympathetic, but he turns out to be no different, moving from the extreme of having barely anything, to becoming one of the biggest providers. The FCC too switched from extreme support of monopolies to supporting competition
I wonder if perhaps moving between these extremes is an underlying point in Wu's combative cycle...
Thank you for the website! It was very interesting.
ReplyDeleteAs to innovation and government, I think the Japanese have a completely different mentality: they want their country to be the best innovator. And by they I mean both the large population and the government. It is a mentality that prevails in other Asian countries too.
On the other hand, there are countries like Romania where the government supports monopolies because it is more profitable (for those few that have the power, not for us, the mass). So, before reading Wu's book, I was quite familiar with words like mogul and magnate. The most obvious case is indeed the media industry. You can easily notice which party supports a specific newspaper or a broadcasting channel. That is why I don't like watching TV or reading newspapers. This is also why I found Wu’s book very relevant for our society and thought-provoking. To express my disagreement I simply don’t watch the news but I cannot imagine myself not being able to use the Internet freely.