Is Google is ruining the Internet?

“To my mind an overleveraged unsecured mortgage is exactly the same thing as a pirated music file. It’s somebody’s value that’s been copied many times to give benefit to some distant party. In the case of the music files, it’s to the benefit of an advertising spy like Google [which monetizes your search history], and in the case of the mortgage, it’s to the benefit of a fund manager somewhere. But in both cases all the risk and the cost is radiated out toward ordinary people and the middle classes—and even worse, the overall economy has shrunk in order to make a few people more.”

- Jaron Lanier on the failure of Web 2.0,

“What Turned Jaron Lanier Against the Web?“, Smithsonian Magazine

Worth a read for an interesting view of who bears the risk and who reaps the rewards on today’s Internet.