The Age of Extraction: How Tech Platforms Conquered the Economy and Threaten Our Future Prosperity By Tim Wu

The Age of Extraction explores how today’s dominant tech platforms manipulate attention, extract wealth, and deepen inequality – urging us to recognize their influence and reclaim control to create a balanced economy that works for all.

Our world is dominated by a handful of tech platforms. They provide great conveniences and entertainment but also stand as some of the most effective instruments of wealth extraction ever invented, seizing immense amounts of money, data and attention from all of us. An economy driven by digital platforms and AI influence offers the potential to enrich us, and yet likewise threatens to marginalize entire industries, widen the wealth gap, and foster a two-class nation. As technology evolves and our markets adapt, can society cultivate a better life for everyone? Is it possible to balance economic growth and egalitarianism – or are we too late?

The Age of Extraction tells the story of an internet that promised widespread wealth and democracy in the 1990s and 2000s, only to aid the spread of autocracy instead. Tim Wu, the preeminent scholar and former White House official who coined the phrase ‘net neutrality’, frames our current moment with lessons from recent history – from generative AI and predictive social data to the anti-monopoly and crypto movements. And, perhaps most importantly of all, Wu envisions a future where technological advances are able to serve the greatest possible good, for everyone.

Concise and hopeful, The Age of Extraction offers consequential proposals for taking back control to achieve a better economic balance and prosperity for all.