The future of the book

> The printed book is an excellent means of channelling information from writer to reader; the e-book can send information back as well. Teachers will be able to learn of a pupil’s progress and questions; publishers will be able to see which books are gulped down, which sipped slowly. Already readers can see what other readers have thought worthy of note, and seek out like-minded people for further discussion of what they have read. The private joys of the book will remain; new public pleasures are there to be added.

All of this is true, but it elides an important facet of this shift from books as one-way channels of communication to two-way, namely that a book that can talk back to its maker can do so in ways that work against the interests of its reader as well as those that work with them.

In other words -- "teachers will be able to learn of a pupil’s progress and questions; publishers will be able to see which books are gulped down, which sipped slowly" are good examples of reader-positive things these new capabilities could enable. (The teacher can use what she knows of the pupil's reading patters to customize her curriculum for his needs; the publisher can use it to bring to market more books that readers would enjoy.) But a book that can tell your teacher how quickly you're reading it can also tell an advertiser which ads you linger over and which you skip; a book that can tell its publisher what type of literature you devour can also tell your government which subversive ideas you obsessively re-read.

The technology itself is morally neutral, but without legal and social controls, we're as likely to see reader-negative uses of these capabilities emerge as we are reader-positive. (If anything, reader-negative approaches may have an advantage, just because the interests that they serve are richer and more powerful than reader-positive ones.)

Whenever there's a case of a knife that cuts both ways, it's useful to spend time contemplating the implications of being sliced with each end of the blade. But this article completely skips over that stuff, which is disappointing in an otherwise solid essay.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yW4ADTCZc8E

I say this as a mobile UI app developer who is coming to grips with the shittiness of some of the interfaces I've written that are out in the wild right now.