Author

Tim Wu

24 key ideas across 3 books, each explained in our own words.

The Attention Merchants

IDEA 1
Attention became a product
Wu argues that a major industry has grown up around capturing human attention and selling it to advertisers. He traces this business from nineteenth-century newspapers to modern social media. Each new medium has been used for the same purpose.
IDEA 2
Cheap newspapers began the trade
Wu describes the penny press of the 1830s, newspapers sold below cost and paid for by advertising. Readers became the product sold to advertisers. Because the paper was cheap, it could reach far more people than older papers did.
IDEA 3
Posters and propaganda grew
Wu describes how advertising and government propaganda, especially during the First World War, showed the power of capturing attention. These campaigns taught governments and companies how to shape public feelings on a large scale.

IDEA 1
Giant companies threaten democracy
Wu argues that extreme concentration of economic power is dangerous not only for markets but for democracy. He calls for a return to strong antitrust laws to limit corporate size.
IDEA 2
Brandeis warned about bigness
Wu draws on Louis Brandeis, an American judge who argued that huge companies threaten liberty. Brandeis believed small businesses kept society free. He feared that great wealth in a few hands could crush both competition and citizens' voices.
IDEA 3
Trust-busters broke monopolies
Wu describes the early twentieth century, when governments broke up giant companies like Standard Oil. This was seen as protecting democracy. Leaders of the time believed that breaking up giants kept power spread among the people.

IDEA 1
Information industries follow a cycle
Wu argues that information technologies follow a pattern he calls the Cycle. Each begins as an open, chaotic field of inventors, then gets taken over by a powerful monopoly or cartel.
IDEA 2
Telephones became a monopoly
Wu describes how the telephone began with many competitors but became controlled by AT&T. The company dominated American communication for decades. Early rivals were bought or squeezed out, which left one firm in charge of the network.
IDEA 3
Films fell under studio control
Wu describes how early independent filmmakers were overtaken by Hollywood studios. The studios controlled production and cinemas. Owning the makers, the distributors and the theatres gave a few firms power over what audiences could see.

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