The Age of Extraction: How Tech Platforms Conquered the Economy and Threaten Our Future Prosperity

Brought to you by Penguin. The Age of Extraction explores how today’s dominant tech platforms manipulate attention, extract wealth, and deepen inequality – urging us to recognize their influence and reclaim control to create a balanced economy that works for all. Our world is dominated by a handful of tech platforms. They provide great conveniences and entertainment but also stand as some of the most effective instruments of wealth extraction ever invented, seizing immense amounts of money, data and attention from all of us. An economy driven by digital platforms and AI influence offers the potential to enrich us, and yet likewise threatens to marginalize entire industries, widen the wealth gap, and foster a two-class nation. As technology evolves and our markets adapt, can society cultivate a better life for everyone? Is it possible to balance economic growth and egalitarianism – or are we too late? The Age of Extraction tells the story of an internet that promised widespread wealth and democracy in the 1990s and 2000s, only to aid the spread of autocracy instead. Tim Wu, the preeminent scholar and former White House official who coined the phrase 'net neutrality', frames our current moment with lessons from recent history – from generative AI and predictive social data to the anti-monopoly and crypto movements. And, perhaps most importantly of all, Wu envisions a future where technological advances are able to serve the greatest possible good, for everyone. Concise and hopeful, The Age of Extraction offers consequential proposals for taking back control to achieve a better economic balance and prosperity for all. 'Insightful' CORY DOCTOROW 'Essential reading' KAREN HAO 'A how-to book on how we can achieve liberty' MATT STOLLER 'A passionate call for a fairer economy' DARON ACEMOGLU © Tim Wu 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025

About the Author :
Tim Wu is Julius Silver Professor of Law, Science and Technology at Columbia Law School. He worked in the White House as special assistant to President Biden for technology and competition policy, and is the author of The Master Switch and The Attention Merchants. He currently splits his time between New York City and Oxford.

Review :
Tim Wu is a titan in the world of competition policy in digital markets … [His] record of insight, indeed prescience, makes his new book, The Age of Extraction, a must read A manual to the oligarchic takeover of the internet as well as the broader economy that now depends upon it . . . [whose] proposed solutions for fixing the internet provide hope, not least because of how simple they are The paradox of the platform: without middlemen, we’d all be stuck, but those same middlemen are forever working to declare themselves to be our bosses. Wu’s characteristically insightful book cuts to the core of these world-consuming, usurping enshittifiers, and tells us how to stop them The magic of Tim Wu’s The Age of Extraction is its simplicity. Wu deftly breaks down one of the greatest challenges of our age - the unaccountable power of tech platforms - into such digestible pieces that the solutions for what to do become dead obvious. Essential reading for anyone looking for the recipe to rebalance the vast inequality in our society and to create a thriving economy that works for everyone Large tech companies are set to be the main beneficiaries of a new economy based on data and artificial intelligence. But neither the lopsided present of tech nor the future direction of technology is our destiny. Tim Wu's readable, passionate call is for a fairer economy where the benefits of AI can be for all of us, and he proposes principles, laws, and regulations about how to achieve this Tim Wu’s The Age of Extraction is a how-to book on how we can achieve liberty once again. Wu describes why so much in our society feels unbalanced, that the convenience and scale of platforms masks a hidden creeping power over our lives and communities. But he also shows how platforms in one form or another have always been part of human society, and the key is to govern them properly Tim Wu’s The Age of Extraction is a must-read. This is a book for anyone—from senator to student—who seeks to understand our digital economy and why we need common sense rules of the road. Wu shows us how to protect consumers, workers, small businesses, and even our democracy from dominant platforms that have inserted themselves into nearly every aspect of our lives The Age of Extraction is remarkably astute and timely. Wu brilliantly analyzes platform power with great clarity, insight, and moral force, laying out the material stakes for people's lives as well as a roadmap for achieving broad prosperity and economic fairness. A vital book for these troubled times