The battle for the internet

Business Techcrunch

Why Amazon is eating the world

A look at the radical way in which Amazon is systematically turning each component of its business into an productised commercial venture with external clients – starting with their technology infrastructure, then their fulfillment service and so on. The objective goes beyond revenues and profit (though they come – Amazon Web Services has a $14bn annual run rate) to building a “moat” around their market position and ensuring that the pressure of servicing external clients keeps all units in Amazon lean and competitive.

Business The Yale Law Journal

Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox

A searching piece about Amazon and monopoly, published in a newspaper owned by Amazon’s CEO. If you have the time, it’s also worth dipping into the elegantly wrought 28,000 word ‘note’ in The Yale Law Journal that inspired the piece.

Technology Wired

Second Life was Just the Beginning

Second Life was perhaps the first virtual world to enter mainstream discourse. Its founder thinks new virtual reality technologies are its successor, and destined for mass adoption. http://www.bit.ly/wired-secondlife

Medium Society

4chan: The Skeleton Key to the Rise of Trump

A message board allowing users to post anonymously has played a significant role in the recent history of internet culture (think – the birthplace of the meme), the development of new extreme right movements sometimes called the ‘alt-right’, and the series of events that put Trump in the White House.

Crime Wired

The Rise and Fall of Silk Road

A long look at the infamous online marketplace for illegal goods, starting with a DEA raid on a grandpa in Utah who had just taken receipt of $27,000 of cocaine. http://www.bit.ly/wired-silkroad

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