Our algorithms, ourselves

An earlier version of thisessay appeared last year, under the headline “The Manipulators,” in the Los Angeles Review of Books.

Since the launchof Netscape and Yahoo twentyyears ago, the storyof the internet has been oneof new companies and new products, a story shaped largely by the interests of entrepreneurs and venture capitalists. The plot has been linear; the pace, relentless. In 1995 came Amazon and Craigslist; in 1997, Google and Netflix; in 1999, Napster and Blogger; in 2001, iTunes; in...