Cohen and Schmidt argue -- without a hint of irony -- that "the printing
press, the landline, the radio, the television, and the fax machine all
represent technological revolutions, but [they] all required
intermediaries. ... [The digital revolution] is the first that will make
it possible for almost everybody to own, develop and disseminate
real-time content without having to rely on intermediaries."
...Coming from senior executives of the world's most powerful
intermediary -- the one that shapes how we find information (not to
mention Google's expansion into fields like fiber networks) -- all this
talk about the disappearance of intermediaries is truly bizarre and
disingenuous.
...Not surprisingly, Cohen and Schmidt contradict their own gospel of
disintermediation when they mention just how easy it was to weaken
WikiLeaks by going after companies such as Amazon and PayPal.
-- Evgeny Morozov. "Future Shlock: Meet the two-world hypothesis and its havoc"
(review of The New Digital Age by Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen)
New Repubic (May 27, 2013)
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/113272/eric-schmidt-and-jared-cohenthe-new-digital-ages-futurist-schlock