This is the clearest version of the structural argument I've seen: the corruption was latent in the design, not imposed from outside. Enshittification as feature, not bug.
What's striking is how close the essay gets to the body without arriving there. "Human beings did not evolve to be virtual creatures" points in the right direction, but the analysis stays cognitive. Brain, intellect, psyche. It stops just short of the nervous system.
The web doesn't just overwhelm thought. It trains the body into the same defensive narrowing that trauma produces: constriction, shortened time horizons, collapse of presence. Once you see that, the limits of antitrust look different. You're right that breaking up Meta won't change the business model. But even if it did, we would still be living inside bodies shaped by decades of engineered overstimulation. This is not just structural damage. It is physiological. Capacity doesn't return when the policy shifts. It has to be rebuilt.
The sailboat passage lands this better than any argument. Berners-Lee reaches presence and immediately catalogs what his phone can access. That pivot is the wound. Attention pulled out of the body at the exact moment it begins to settle.
That's the deeper problem the piece circles. Not just what the web became, but what it has been training our bodies to become.
Having invented, rather naïvely, something that is hurting humankind, maybe Berners-Lee should take the lead of Alfred Nobel and establish a prize for people who have a deeper understanding of humanity than the average computer geek.
“Decentralization at a technical level breeds centralization at an industrial level.” very interesting idea, (and great sentence) I challenges me, as ishare his instinct to not centralise, but the internet has turned out to be a much more controlled (and horrible)place than anyone could imagine. I do wonder the counter-factual would have been, we can't be sure it would be better.
I felt very similar thoughts while reading this book; in fact, I found it quite disturbing. I enjoyed his previous book, Weaving the Web, but found that he seemed to have lost his grounding since then, and there was far too much mention of personal awards and accolades. You were kind enough not to mention his selling a very expensive NFT - I expected a serious explanation for why he chose to do that, and found it lacking. It's a great shame, but more than anything else, I see it as a personal warning to not excessively venerate technology.
All of us must seriously ponder our complicity in empowering surveillance capitalism. Can't blame T B-L for what we willingly participated in with little forethought. We could have been more cautious (and some remain so). Thank you for this review of T B-L's book, Nick.
Your article reminded me of Yuval noah Harari's book Nexus which talks about how baby algorithms need a goal besides access to data. Where this has been the norm with all 21st century inventions, like social media has the cheif goal of maximizing engagement.
Being a student of law, my outlook on this is limited with regards to how technology is built through codes and therefore makes me think if the code written by Tim bernes lee also had any such "goal".
Nice review and history here. The Internet is for everyone, all right, but in an Orwellian kind of way when you consider that some are more "equal" than others.
This is the clearest version of the structural argument I've seen: the corruption was latent in the design, not imposed from outside. Enshittification as feature, not bug.
What's striking is how close the essay gets to the body without arriving there. "Human beings did not evolve to be virtual creatures" points in the right direction, but the analysis stays cognitive. Brain, intellect, psyche. It stops just short of the nervous system.
The web doesn't just overwhelm thought. It trains the body into the same defensive narrowing that trauma produces: constriction, shortened time horizons, collapse of presence. Once you see that, the limits of antitrust look different. You're right that breaking up Meta won't change the business model. But even if it did, we would still be living inside bodies shaped by decades of engineered overstimulation. This is not just structural damage. It is physiological. Capacity doesn't return when the policy shifts. It has to be rebuilt.
The sailboat passage lands this better than any argument. Berners-Lee reaches presence and immediately catalogs what his phone can access. That pivot is the wound. Attention pulled out of the body at the exact moment it begins to settle.
That's the deeper problem the piece circles. Not just what the web became, but what it has been training our bodies to become.
I explore this further in "The Attention Wound: What the Attention Economy Extracts and What the Body Cannot Surrender." . https://yauguru.substack.com/p/the-attention-wound?r=217mr3
Having invented, rather naïvely, something that is hurting humankind, maybe Berners-Lee should take the lead of Alfred Nobel and establish a prize for people who have a deeper understanding of humanity than the average computer geek.
“Decentralization at a technical level breeds centralization at an industrial level.” very interesting idea, (and great sentence) I challenges me, as ishare his instinct to not centralise, but the internet has turned out to be a much more controlled (and horrible)place than anyone could imagine. I do wonder the counter-factual would have been, we can't be sure it would be better.
I felt very similar thoughts while reading this book; in fact, I found it quite disturbing. I enjoyed his previous book, Weaving the Web, but found that he seemed to have lost his grounding since then, and there was far too much mention of personal awards and accolades. You were kind enough not to mention his selling a very expensive NFT - I expected a serious explanation for why he chose to do that, and found it lacking. It's a great shame, but more than anything else, I see it as a personal warning to not excessively venerate technology.
All of us must seriously ponder our complicity in empowering surveillance capitalism. Can't blame T B-L for what we willingly participated in with little forethought. We could have been more cautious (and some remain so). Thank you for this review of T B-L's book, Nick.
Sounds like a book I should be glad I didn’t buy.
Your article reminded me of Yuval noah Harari's book Nexus which talks about how baby algorithms need a goal besides access to data. Where this has been the norm with all 21st century inventions, like social media has the cheif goal of maximizing engagement.
Being a student of law, my outlook on this is limited with regards to how technology is built through codes and therefore makes me think if the code written by Tim bernes lee also had any such "goal".
So, so true. Thank you for this cameo of a modern-day Pandora.
Nice review and history here. The Internet is for everyone, all right, but in an Orwellian kind of way when you consider that some are more "equal" than others.