Tim Wu Quotes

7 Sourced Quotes

The blessing of the state, implicit or explicit, has been crucial to every twentieth-century information empire.

Tim Wu
The case for industry breakups comes from Thomas Jefferson's idea that occasional revolutions are important to the health of any system. As he wrote in 1787, a little rebellion every now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical one.

Tim Wu
The best antidote to the disruptive power of innovation is overregulation.

Tim Wu
Nothing, save the hangman's noose, concentrates the mind like piles of cash.

Tim Wu
The breakup of Bell laid the foundation for every important communications revolution since the 1980s onward. There was no way of knowing that thirty years on we would have an Internet, handheld computers, and social networking, but it is hard to imagine their coming when they did, had the company that bured the answering machine remained intact.

Tim Wu
Markets are born free, yet no sooner are they born than some would-be emperor is forging chains. Paradoxically, it sometimes happens that the only way to preserve freedom is through judicious controls on the exercise of private power. If we believe in liberty, it must be freedom from both private and public coercion.

Tim Wu
History shows a typical progression of information technologies: from somebody's hobby to somebody's industry; from jury-rigged contraption to slick production marvel; from a freely accessible channel to one strictly controlled by a single corporation or cartel-from open to closed system.

Tim Wu