To be completely honest with you, I requested this book purely off the cover. Might be interesting to those who internet/tech history, but also too wordy for the layperson.

This is one of those books I didn’t know I needed to read, but I’m glad I did. Timely, necessary, and surprisingly easy to understand, Cloud Empires describes how Amazon, eBay and other large platforms came to be what they are, what opportunities they’ve created, what problems they’ve caused, and what we could all do about it.

Each chapter tells the story of a platform or a technology, usually from the perspective of its creator or a user, and then uses that story as a case study to make a broader point about the rules and nature of the internet. The author does a decent job of writing about weighty matters in a way that doesn’t assume the reader has a degree in political philosophy. It isn’t exactly a beach read, but I often found myself engrossed in this book. All chapters are self-contained and can be read independently, but I recommend reading the entire book sequentially. The book covers primarily commercial and financial platforms–most of it isn’t about social media platforms.

Professor Lehdonvirta traces the development of various technologies and institutions that make up the internet we take for granted today. He describes how each technology changed the scale and scope of human interactions and, in many cases, improved the efficiency of work and the quality of life of millions of people. He also shows how certain problems that are inherent in human nature followed us online, made worse by the scale and anonymity of the internet.

The author makes a compelling argument that online platforms are never free from politics. Contrary to the facile hot takes we see all the time, he doesn’t argue that companies are trying to usurp the territorial jurisdiction of states. Instead, he focuses on how users and companies can’t escape the political struggles that arise from the design of the platforms. Companies fill gaps in state authority and impose their own rules to go with their new platforms. For example, he makes the case that the efficiency and scalability of the dispute resolution systems on many online platforms are often the result of ignoring users’ rights. He also makes the human cost of these rules impossible to ignore.

The author’s takedown of the myths surrounding crypto and blockchain is cogent but also appropriately restrained. He convincingly debunks the lie that these new technologies are decentralised and inherently fair. However, he also rejects the “evil man” theory that claims the problem is just that the people at the top have malicious intentions. Instead, as he does in every chapter, he argues that broader and deeper incentives determine and constrain the range of possible actions each person may take. To understand why a system works the way it does, we need to turn our attention to its rules, context and incentive structure, not just the individuals.

This is the idea that links all chapters of the book. Even if the day-to-day administration of a system could be automated in a reliable, transparent and credible way, the legislative responsibilities can’t be automated. The design of the system itself and its rules can’t be outsourced or ignored, and it is never completely neutral. Personally, as a writer who works in user experience, I was fascinated by the author’s gripping descriptions of the (usually terrible) consequences some design decisions had on each platform’s users.

Lehdonvirta argues that users should have a say in how the platforms they use are governed. He seems enthusiastic about rules and proposals that he sees as a step in the right direction, although he also says we shouldn’t expect states to solve these problems for us. However, the path forward isn’t really the heart of the book at all. His proposals are limited to some brief notes on the conclusion. I would have liked to read more about this–for example, about the possible effects of multilateral regulations. I also think the author might be too quick to dismiss the power of the European Union to regulate these platforms, since the EU has an unusually strong ability to export regulations. Of course, it wouldn’t be reasonable to ask the author to fix the internet in just one book. Perhaps he can do that in a follow-up book.

I received an advance review copy from the publisher through Netgalley.

I like the way this book present how technology affects many institution of our lives. Every chapter focuses on specific topics such as the labor, cryptocurrencies, platform economy, and many more. The narration of the story is superbly entertaining, and the way the quotes are emphasized by lowering its font makes it easy to focus on the quoted statements.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? This is the question at the heart of Vili Lehdonvirta’s new book, Cloud Empires. The cover and title both drew me to this book. I am not well-versed in economics or sociology, but Lehdonvirta’s subject is something that affects us all—the digital markets or platforms that possess a firm hold on online markets. As such, this book is not about the tech giants in a broad sense, and I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it people who are looking for a more general overview of Big Tech. All the same though, I am pretty sure nearly everyone these days has bought something online, so it is still relevant to our daily lives. This is an important book and although we’ve been taking in the ominous portents of Big Tech’s reach for years now, we have not yet seen a narrative that tackles digital platforms and commerce for a broader audience.

The narrative is structured chronologically, with the earlier chapters corresponding to the lawless and chaotic days of the early internet. Since there was an abundance of anonymity and not much in the way of regulatory or institutional frameworks, Lehdonvirta explains how digital commerce had yet to really take off—at least until companies like eBay and Amazon came into the picture. Reading about the early days of Usenet and the visions of various tech founders was interesting and established one of the running themes of digital commerce—its primary intention was always to resist the undue influence of outsiders, i.e., government regulation, in favor of giving its users more control and liberty. Of course, this is far from how it actually played out. Lehdonvirta does well to emphasize that this occurred as a byproduct of human attitudes and limitations—not merely because tech founders were actively malicious.

One of the more interesting chapters was on Satoshi Nakamota, the anonymous creator of Bitcoin. I have to say, I quite appreciated this contextual information, and Lehdonvirta’s exposition on Bitcoin has helped me to understand how it works moreso than any other thing I’ve read on Bitcoin. Lehdonvirta also displays a deft skill with European history—he makes several comparisons to medieval economy but also culture generally throughout the book; for instance, he compares Satoshi Nakamoto to Solon after the Athenian peasant revolt, and honestly, as unexpected as that was, he makes a fair point. The story of Bitcoin points out an inherent flaw in the nature of the internet—we may be anonymous and equal behind these screens, but even when you have an algorithm, you still need a human (along with all of his or her accompanying biases and flaws) to push the buttons and write the code. The promise of true objectivity and neutrality is far from being realized.

Another great aspect of the book are the parts that touch on labor rights and the digital workers’ movements—for instance, the chapters on the development of Upwork (which I had never heard of until now, somehow) and Kristy Milland’s efforts to seek better treatment for Amazon’s Mechanical Turk laborers. There is a lot of opportunity, particularly in the digital freelancing world, but given its novel nature and unprecedented economic flourishing, digital labor is also ripe for abuse. This book helps to illustrate why this is still a major issue arising from platform giants and what may be done to alleviate these concerns.

The second half of the subtitle is ‘How We Can Regain Control’. On this front, the reader may be slightly disappointed. Since much of the book covers various platforms and their origins or development, the last section of the book, the Conclusion, is where Lehdonvirta begins discussing possible solutions in earnest. However, to his credit, he critically discusses and analyzes various theories and strategies proposed by people such as Lina M. Khan, the newly appointed Director of the Federal Trade Commission. In that sense, he does at least provide some frameworks that the reader can consider for how we may move forward from the current state of things. This book would be especially useful in that regard for those in tech policy. However, he emphasizes that this is something out of the reach of the individual user; we need movements and governments to step in and lend a guiding hand. On this front, I am admittedly skeptical, especially since it seems like most of the Boomer Generation currently occupying seats in the U.S. legislature are not going anywhere any time soon. As long as we have senators who are ignorant of simple things such as how Facebook makes inconceivable amounts of money in revenue or how Amazon tracks users across much of the modern web, I am not sure that the government can adequately respond to these issues. Additionally, this is a minor point, but I wish the author had better established the definitions of ‘digital platforms’ early on in the book; the cover features Amazon, Meta, Apple, and Google, but really only one of these gets a decent amount of discussion, and so I would have appreciated a more expanded overview of these other platforms (as well as interesting cases like Facebook Marketplace).

I also noticed a few typographical or minor grammatical errors. For instance, at one point, ‘Orson Scott Card’ is referred to as ‘Scott Orson Card’. I can only hope these were fixed for the final print version.

All the same, Lehdonvirta’s main message of this book is to convince the reader that digital platforms have taken on quasi-state roles, developing institutional frameworks that occupy both economic and political roles. This applies not only to digital commerce but indeed to most aspects of the internet. Transparency and accountability are seriously lacking. But, as Lehdonvirta points out, this was also the case in the early days of the Industrial Revolution. Things can and still may begin to change towards a more democratizing trend, and for the sake of internet users everywhere I sincerely hope that they do.

After all, just read the latest headlines and ask yourself if this isn’t a dystopia: Amazon to buy primary care provider One Medical for $3.9B

Disclaimer: Thank you to Netgalley and MIT Press for providing an advanced reader copy of this book. This review reflects only my honest thoughts.

If you are interested in the histories in biographical form of Ebay, Uber, Amazon, and others this is the book for you. Personally, I was often bored by these micro-histories since the author went into what I felt was excessive detail.

Cloud Empires is an incredible primer on how tech platforms have gotten to where they have through an inspired selection of stories about the history of the Internet. Each story focuses on a particular individual, the role they played in shaping the landscape of our digital world, and how they changed that landscape. Through each story, the reader gains a deeper understanding of why the web is how it is, and what does and doesn't work to improve it. Lehdonvirta does a masterful job explaining these stories from first principles for newcomers to the space, while adding depth and context for readers already familiar with many of the concepts in the book.