[BOOK REVIEW] "Who Owns the Future?" A primer on how humanistic information economies can transform society

Who Owns The Future? is a prescient book about information economies, authored by Jaron Lanier, an influential technologist, composer, and computer scientist.

At its core is the idea that the globalization of digital networks in their current incarnation today has created an information economy where the wealth and influence are lopsided, due to the presence of Siren Servers. In the book, he forwards the notion that all information contributed to digital networks by people should be explicitly valued in order to grow the economy and truly unlock the economic benefits of digital networks. He describes the current paradigm of cloud service providers monopolizing wealth generated by digital networks as a small hill on an energy landscape of potential market capitalization, explaining that humanity must cross a valley to reach the ideal model for an information economy, a so called humanistic information economy.

Siren Servers are the conduits through which large swathes of information flow "for free." They are typically companies that started out as startups, some examples of these Sirens include Facebook, Google, Reddit, Amazon, Wal-Mart, Palantir, Airbnb, and hedge funds that participate in high frequency trading. They are nodes in a network that occupy the "top-level" or "root" of the network and provide "fake free" services to people in exchange for information. These Siren Servers extract value from information by processing, storing, and analyzing the data that is given to them by people for free in order synthesize meaning, and generate profits. They have an advantage due to the information asymmetry that exists as the top of a tree shaped network. They are also capable of creating punishing network effects, making it difficult for users to migrate away from the Siren's services without incurring a perceived cost (such as loss of the benefits of network effects and the inability to access data).

The forces exerted by Sirens have the effect of concentrating the wealth generated by digital networks into the hands of the Siren's operators and a small minority of those who interact with it (for example, people who actually made money using YouTube, a small fraction of the total userbase). This happens in a sinister way, as the Siren attracts people to its service by providing "fake free" services (its song), obfuscating the true value of people's data. Consumers of the Siren's service have "fake ownership" over the information they create, as the amnesia of the internet does not continue to value one's information contributions perpetually over time. These problems eventually lead to the shrinking of the overall market, as people are not considered first class citizens with commercial and economic rights over their data contributions in such a scheme.

As automation advances and old opportunities to make a living are replaced by machines, it is important that we shepherd the masses into a framework that provides a humanistic information economy whereby the benefits of technology can be enjoyed by all, and fair valuations of people's contributions in the form of information are paid. These mechanisms will actually grow the market, benefitting all, and allowing a middle class to exist, providing a healthy distribution of wealth and influence.

Siren Servers can be represented by "star" network topology, where there's a central controlling server. On the other hand, blockchains look closer to "mesh" due to p2p discovery and no central server with more influence exists.

One of the most interesting things I noticed about this book, which is chock-full of wisdom, is that it does not mention blockchain networks once! And yet, what we are building here with Steem is exactly the type of solution that Jaron is calling for. I am excited for EOS (which I view as the mothership... imagine if you had one "avatar" that allows you to access the whole web, and maintain in control of your digital sovereignty!) along with many other projects that are springing to life with the goal of distributing wealth to those that create the initial value represented by information.

That which Steem represents for published written works that are collectively valued by a community distributing a digital asset, Muse could represent for composed works of music and another form of creativity, music making. DECENT is providing the rails for generic digital content to be valued. Bitshares lets you dream up your own models and easily issue a custom token to drive new innovation in this space. What other ways can information be valued? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments. I want to see blockchain networks used in order to negotiate peer-to-peer utilities. Imagine a power grid or internet service that can be bought, sold, and paid for with digital assets. I could resell my power to my neighbor, or run a relay node in exchange for some INTERNET tokens, which can be used to pay for my internet access.

I'll leave you with a quote from the book:

"Suddenly investors will be making money from having bet on a confederacy of bloggers (though the bloggers would know about it and risks would not be hidden, as they were when mortgages were leveraged in secret)."

Does that sound familiar? If this book isn't validation for the Steem model, or why STEEM itself has value, I don't know what is! Go read it now. It'll be worth your time, I swear!