The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google

The Big Switch, published in January 2008, is Carr's earliest book-length argument about the internet's societal effects, preceding The Shallows. Its central comparison, reflected in the subtitle 'Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google,' likens the rise of centralized, utility-style computing to the historical shift from private electric generators to a shared power grid a century earlier, arguing that concentrating computing power and information flow in a small number of large platforms carries tradeoffs between convenience and dependence. The book also considers how an advertising-driven web economy shapes what content is produced and who profits from it, themes Carr would return to in his later, more attention-focused work. It presents historical argument and analysis rather than new empirical data. TechKids Foundation includes it as the foundational text connecting the internet's business model and structure to the cultural and attentional concerns explored in Carr's later books.

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