After the Internet: Digital Networks between Capital and the Common (Semiotext

by Tiziana Terranova

On the internet's transformation from communication tool to computational infrastructure.

The internet is no more. If it still exists, it does so only as a residual technology, still effective in the present but less intelligible as such. After nearly two decades and a couple of financial crises, it has become the almost imperceptible background of today's Corporate Platform Complex (CPC)—a pervasive planetary technological infrastructure that meshes communication with computation.

In the essays collected in this book, written mostly between the mid-2000s and the late 2010s, Tiziana Terranova bears witness to this monstrous transformation. Mobilizing theories of cognitive capitalism, neo-monadology, and sympathetic cooperation, considering ideas such as the attention economy and its psychopathologies, and evoking the relation between algorithmic automation and the Common, she provides real-time takes on the mutations that have changed the technological, cultural, and economic ethos of the Internet. Mostly conceived, elaborated, and discussed in collective activist spaces, After the Internet is neither apocalyptic lamentation nor melancholic “rise and fall” story of betrayed great expectations. On the contrary, it looks within the folds of the recent past to unfold the potential futurities that the post-digital computational present still entails.

Genres: Nonfiction, Technology, Philosophy

216 pages, Paperback

Published December 13, 2022

Reviews

[Mickey Smith]

will have to come back to this one. ironically felt like someone fed all of Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus into GPT and it sprayed out 170 pages of critical theory for critical theory's sake. perhaps a re-read will give it some more substance to me, but the main things that it had to say re: networks of capital that get built up in a sphere very different from the original internet were intuitable from the author's semi-fictitious science-fiction/political polemic letter included in the book that seemed to be the impetus for writing the piece.

[a____ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Red Cybernetics

[Michael Kent · Rating 4 out of 5]

Expanded my thinking on both the evolving integration of the internet (or digital platforms) into our everyday lives, and the competition for, degradation of, and commodification of people’s limited attention. Opening essays and closing essay fairly accessible, middle ones increasingly dense for lay people.

[reoccurrence]

What I understood, I liked. What I didn’t understand was probably good too. I am not well versed in Theory. I will not rate it because I was not well read enough to read this haha

[Helena Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really liked the first 3 essays and thought the intro gave a great high-level account of digital cultures and ideologies from 1960-2010s as well as the fundamental difference between the "internet" and Web 2.0 (Corporate Platform Complex, as Terranova calls it). Underwhelmed by essay 4 on how algs could be harnessed to construct "new potentialities for post-neoliberal modes of government and postcapitalist modes of production" - really wanted that one to blow my mind but felt it fell short of any profound / compelling proposals. Totally confused and annoyed by essay 5, but probably because I haven't read any Leibniz and don't understand the concept of neomonadology (plus am generally skeptical of postmodernist ontological theory).

Definitely not an accessible read for those who haven't taken a few humanities-based STS courses.

[Kenneth Kim · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was painfully boring. I understand the intent behind what the thesis of the book is (the irrevocable change of the internet, the corporate influence upon internet outreach), it just feels very hamfisted. these essays are not particularly well-written either. but it gets 2 instead of anything lower because the subject material is, at the end of the day, very interesting. in fact, the material is the saving grace

[Peter Kluppels · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very continental reading of the interstices of the digital world. Certainly correctly identifying that the internet as once envisioned is no longer a thing. Trying to get to grips with this post-internet era in a way that feels like so many activist approaches. A tale of 'work'spaces, experiments and a search for paths to resistance and possibilities towards a digital commons of some sort. Has an AI monologuing at the end (ooh... edgy)

[Paul Nunes]

Most of this has gone over my head. The parts I understood well resonated powerfully with me.

[Cole Blouin]

It's good! Loved the part about neomonadology.

[Martyna · Rating 4 out of 5]

bardzo ciekawy i mądry zbiór esejów o internecie i jego wpływie na kapitalizm i społeczeństwo. najbardziej podobał mi się ostatni esej.

[Wendi · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first few chapters offered really good.& concise summaries of what has happened to internet x capitalism. I stopped paying attention once it got to Deleuze & Guattari…

[Dominique Rowell · Rating 3 out of 5]

What are we going to do about this internet thing? Let it destroy the entire world? Probably.