How long does it take to read The Internet Con?
How to Seize the Means of Computation
The Internet Con by Cory Doctorow takes about 3 hours 31 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 3 hours 31 minutes
A weekend read
First published 2023. 192 pages, about 52,800 words.
8 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 5 hours 52 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 3 hours 31 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 2 hours 12 minutes |
The page count is the median across 2 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
When the tech platforms promised a future of "connection," they were lying. They said their "walled gardens" would keep us safe, but those were prison walls. The platforms locked us into their systems and made us easy pickings, ripe for extraction. Twitter, Facebook and other Big Tech platforms hard to leave by design. They hold hostage the people we love, the communities that matter to us, the audiences and customers we rely on. The impossibility of staying connected to these people after you delete your account has nothing to do with technological limitations: it's a business strategy in service to commodifying your personal life and relationships. We can - we must - dismantle the tech platforms. In The Internet Con , Cory Doctorow explains how to seize the means of computation, by forcing Silicon Valley to do the thing it fears most: interoperate. Interoperability will tear down the walls between technologies, allowing users leave platforms, remix their media, and reconfigure their devices without corporate permission. Interoperability is the only route to the rapid and enduring annihilation of the platforms. The Internet Con is the disassembly manual we need to take back our internet.
Subjects: internet, antitrust, social media, World Wide Web