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Tim Wu

@superwuster.bsky.social
7.2K followers 30 following 178 posts

Professor Columbia University & contributing opinion writer for the NY Times. Latest book THE AGE OF EXTRACTION (the rise of the platforms) (Nov 2025) www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/69…

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Tim Wu @superwuster.bsky.social · 02/03/2026
Things could go one of three ways (says the FT)
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Tim Wu @superwuster.bsky.social · 24/01/2026
Maybe the reason Trump seems to hate Denmark, Canada, Norway, Minnesota and Vermont so much is that they are nice, decent places that work pretty well -- in other words, the opposite of everything Trump stands for.
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Tim Wu @superwuster.bsky.social · 23/01/2026
Airlines are required to list their "all-in" prices, instead of tricking you with a $49 bait price and piling on fees, taxes etc at the final point of sale. Seems to me that's a pretty good model for most if not all of the economy.
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Tim Wu @superwuster.bsky.social · 23/01/2026
There is something sad and but funny about Donald Trump inadvertently taking up a left-wing concern -- the plight of the "debanked" and "unbanked" www.npr.org/2026/01/22/n...
npr.org
Trump sues JPMorgan Chase and CEO Jamie Dimon for $5B over alleged 'debanking'
The lawsuit escalates a series of confrontations between the president and the leader of the country's biggest bank.
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Tim Wu @superwuster.bsky.social · 19/12/2025
"Antitrust and Industrial Policy: A Misunderstood Relationship." This is a new draft academic paper I've been working on for a while (serious comments welcome). It suggests that the antitrust regime should be understood as a part of the industrial policy toolkit. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
papers.ssrn.com
Antitrust and Industrial Policy: A Misunderstood Relationship
<p>Antitrust and industrial policy have long been understood as separate areas of policy, handled by different officials with different priorities. Superficiall
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Tim Wu @superwuster.bsky.social · 09/12/2025
Netflix? Paramount? They are both terrible for Warner Bros www.nytimes.com/2025/12/09/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | Netflix? Paramount? They’re Both Terrible for Warner Bros.
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Tim Wu @superwuster.bsky.social · 09/12/2025
The point of having merger guidelines and structural presumptions is to discourage firms from attempting illegal mergers. Unfortunately Trump has given everyone the impression that they can get their deal through with kickbacks and ass-kissing
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Tim Wu @superwuster.bsky.social · 08/12/2025
You can get my new book at one of these fine vendors www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/691177...
penguinrandomhouse.com
The Age of Extraction by Tim Wu: 9780593321249 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books
A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF 2025 • Tech platforms manipulate attention, extract wealth, and deepen inequality. In this new book, Tim Wu (The Attention Merchants) explains how we can reclaim control...
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Tim Wu @superwuster.bsky.social · 08/12/2025
The law should send a simple message: Warner Bros, if you want to sell, maybe try finding a buyer who is not a direct competitor?
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Tim Wu @superwuster.bsky.social · 25/11/2025
In a sign of how times have changed, in 1959 economists Turner and Keysen proposed a commission to breakup firms "where, for 5 years or more, one company has accounted for 50 percent or more of annual sales in the market, or four or fewer companies have accounted for 80 percent of sales”
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Tim Wu @superwuster.bsky.social · 25/11/2025
My take on the ruling in the antitrust case against Facebook (Meta) - gift link: www.nytimes.com/2025/11/23/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | The Bad Reasoning in the Meta Antitrust Ruling Isn’t Even the Worst Part
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Tim Wu @superwuster.bsky.social · 16/11/2025
Amazing semi-lost letter from Theodore Roosevelt denouncing paid critics of antitrust and "law-defying corporations of immense wealth who ... expect[] others to treat them beyond and above any possible check from law"
theodorerooseveltcenter.org
Letter from Theodore Roosevelt to Charles J. Bonaparte - Theodore Roosevelt Center
President Roosevelt congratulates Attorney General Charles J. Bonaparte for his speech at Chicago, ...
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Tim Wu @superwuster.bsky.social · 11/11/2025
Last chance to catch book event in SF this evening -- www.commonwealthclub.org/events/2025-...
commonwealthclub.org
Tim Wu: The Age of Extraction
Can we reclaim control of our economy to make it work for everyone? What needs to be understood about the big tech platforms before that could even be attempted? Tim Wu has a plan. Wu, a scholar and t...
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Tim Wu @superwuster.bsky.social · 10/11/2025
Had a great show today on my fave radio show from when I lived in SF -- KQED Forum -- listen here. www.kqed.org/forum/201010...
kqed.org
Click. Scroll. Surrender. Tim Wu Warns Against The Rise of Big Data in 'The Age of Extraction' | KQED
Airdate: Monday, November 10 at 10 AM Our digital lives are increasingly dominated by a handful of powerful tech platforms. Once promising prosperity and democracy, the internet has instead allowed co...
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Tim Wu @superwuster.bsky.social · 10/11/2025
The craziest thing about the Senate D capitulation is that the Trump administration was taking the blame and showing weakness in so many ways, including losing elections. What a time to fold!
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Tim Wu @superwuster.bsky.social · 10/11/2025
In San Francisco and experiencing that feeling when you realize you've been exposed to way too much propaganda. I mean ut has always had bad areas but remains a beautiful and vibrant city to stroll around in.
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Tim Wu @superwuster.bsky.social · 06/11/2025
Eleven years ago Zephyr Teachout and I ran a campaign against Cuomo to uproot the corruption he had brought to New York and his lack of respect for the democratic process. Yesterday was a good day! www.politico.com/states/new-y...
politico.com
Teachout: Cuomo's economic policy 'boils down to favors'
ALBANY-Appearing for the first time at the Capitol, a pair of law professors unleashed a critique of Governor Andrew Cuomo that will serve as the foundation for their Democratic primary challenge.
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Reposted by Tim Wu
Colin Crowell 🔵🦉 @colinc.bsky.social · 04/11/2025
🎧 New on Winging It: I talk with Prof Tim Wu @superwuster.bsky.social, author of the new book "The Age of Extraction" — how the Internet went from great promise to an extraction dynamic, what it means for #AI policy, & how to build a fairer digital economy.🤖 Link: open.spotify.com/episode/0ZL5...
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Tim Wu @superwuster.bsky.social · 02/11/2025
Wish this was a better photo of Barry Lynn, Lina Khan, myself and Jonathan Kanter but it certainly captures a lot of recent anti-monopoly thinking in one frame
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Tim Wu @superwuster.bsky.social · 30/10/2025
Book tour starting next week -- coming to a city near you (probably) timwu.net#booktour
timwu.net
Tim Wu
Tim Wu author page
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Tim Wu @superwuster.bsky.social · 28/10/2025
The American framers and thinkers of that time were so well versed in Roman history and the dynamics that led republics to perpetual dictatorship -- this generation more likely to think the problem with Caesar is that the buffet is overpriced www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2024/...
washingtonpost.com
Review | Don’t be duped by the biggest buffet in Las Vegas
Caesars Palace promises a luxury buffet for $107. It still values quantity over quality.
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Tim Wu @superwuster.bsky.social · 26/10/2025
NY Times essay adapted from my new book, "The Age of Extraction." Gift link here: www.nytimes.com/2025/10/25/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | Big Tech’s Predatory Platform Model Doesn’t Have to Be Our Future
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Tim Wu @superwuster.bsky.social · 15/10/2025
If you are around Oxford (UK) I'm giving a talk at the law school this Thursday at 12 at the IECL seminar room. Topic is: "The Servile State revisited" -- it is reconsideration of distributism as an alternative to brutal capitalism and communism. Open to public
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Tim Wu @superwuster.bsky.social · 09/10/2025
I used to work in the NY AG's office. The federal indictment of Letitia James is disgusting and embarrassing. www.nytimes.com/live/2025/10...
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Tim Wu @superwuster.bsky.social · 07/10/2025
Las Vegas is a microcosm of the broader US economy. Mergers have led to duopoly/oligopoly. A corporate extraction imperative leads to price hikes where hotels / casinos to target big spenders. Short-term profit but longterm cost to the broader ecosystem nytimes.com/2025/10/01/t...
nytimes.com
What’s Wrong With Las Vegas?
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Tim Wu @superwuster.bsky.social · 06/10/2025
Business has long depended on emotional attachment as strategy to create switching costs. (E.g., Cadillac). Seems utterly obvious that despite their ethical commitments, the intentional engineering of AIs to generate human emotional attachment will soon be mainstream.
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Tim Wu @superwuster.bsky.social · 06/10/2025
If the shutdown yields nothing, when health insurance premiums soar as projected, who do Republicans think Americans will blame? Obama?
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Tim Wu @superwuster.bsky.social · 03/10/2025
Finalized my 2025 book tour! Coming through New York, DC, Chicago, Toronto, San Francisco, Los Angeles, London, Oxford and Cambridge. Click here for details: timwu.net#booktour
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Tim Wu @superwuster.bsky.social · 03/10/2025
For my new book, THE AGE OF EXTRACTION, here is the UK cover and the USA cover. Curious which people prefer.
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Tim Wu @superwuster.bsky.social · 03/10/2025
From last week's meeting of winning progressive campaigns in UK/Canada/Australia - Left-leaning parties need tap into national pride, specifically concerning healthcare or threats to economic wellbeing; - Focus on affordability and economics essential; must resist distractions.
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Tim Wu @superwuster.bsky.social · 03/10/2025
It is weird and not healthy to begin every day wondering: "What outrageous thing will the U.S. government do today? Will it be unethical, unconstitutional, or all of the above?"
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Tim Wu @superwuster.bsky.social · 26/09/2025
The lack of any real Republican objection to the open and explicit abuse of the DoJ to target a political enemy is terrifying
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Tim Wu @superwuster.bsky.social · 26/09/2025
Here in London listening to the PMs of England, Canada, Iceland and Australia gives a real sense of hope
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Tim Wu @superwuster.bsky.social · 10/09/2025
The Extraction Imperative: that the highest purpose of business lies not in creating value but finding novel ways to take more money and intangible assets from everyone else; i.e., achieving full use of every iota of market power.
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Tim Wu @superwuster.bsky.social · 09/09/2025
Pick your poison in this debate: absolutist gun rights advocates or haters of transgender people? www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...
washingtonpost.com
Opinion | Conservatives defend transgender rights — to bear arms
Conservatives protest a Justice Department idea to bar transgender people from gun ownership.
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Tim Wu @superwuster.bsky.social · 02/09/2025
Google remedy order is a paradox. Says "Google cannot use the same anticompetitive playbook for its GenAI products that it used for Search." But it then says payments for default placement are fine? The government should appeal the remedy order.
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Tim Wu @superwuster.bsky.social · 02/09/2025
The most important question about the Google remedy just released is whether it will effectively prevent Google from pushing Gemini on distributors / everyone www.nytimes.com/2025/08/26/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | Google Could Get Broken Up This Week. Here’s What It Would Mean.
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Tim Wu @superwuster.bsky.social · 25/08/2025
This Supreme Court is a weird mix of activist and cowardly: they know that the President is violating the Constitution and precedent, but don’t want to get on his bad side, so they signal party loyalty by beating up on district court judges. www.stevevladeck.com/p/174-justic...
stevevladeck.com
174. Justice Gorsuch's Attack on Lower Courts
Just like the earlier rulings that Justice Gorsuch claims lower courts are defying, his concurrence in the NIH grant cutoffs case would be a lot more convincing if it showed more of its work.
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Tim Wu @superwuster.bsky.social · 22/08/2025
A common error in the analysis of antitrust remedies is to see them in isolation from market forces. The best remedies use the market to accomplish its goals.
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Tim Wu @superwuster.bsky.social · 19/08/2025
Must-read inside account of the corruption of antitrust enforcement by the DoJ front office by Roger Alford www.wsj.com/politics/pol...
wsj.com
Bondi Aides Corrupted Antitrust Enforcement, Ousted DOJ Official Says
Roger Alford, formerly second-in-command of the antitrust division, called on a court to scrutinize the merger case that led to his firing.
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Tim Wu @superwuster.bsky.social · 18/08/2025
Announcing my new book THE AGE OF EXTRACTION - presenting a vision of how to retake broad prosperity in the platform age. Coming Nov. 4. "Startling .. An urgent wake-up call" - Publishers Weekly Preorder your copy today: www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/691177...
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Tim Wu @superwuster.bsky.social · 15/08/2025
August is when Presidential honeymoons end -- looks like Trump is down to 38% in Pew's latest and he lacks the ability to fire this statistician pewresearch.org/wp-content/u...
pewresearch.org
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Tim Wu @superwuster.bsky.social · 15/08/2025
Charles I 1630s is the best historic precedent for our moment. That King relied on tariffs, fees & selling monopoly to avoid Parliament & its taxation power. Parliament, angry, eventually declared war on the King; he was put on trial and convicted. www.parliament.uk/about/living...
parliament.uk
The Civil War
Over the space of 20 years England experienced civil war, regicide, a republic and military rule
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Tim Wu @superwuster.bsky.social · 14/08/2025
Reading a newish classic: How Democracies Die revista.drclas.harvard.edu/how-democrac...
revista.drclas.harvard.edu
How Democracies Die
How Democracies Die analyzes the main dangers that modern democracies face. As the authors warn, 21st-century democracies do not die in one fell swoop, in a violent way, by hands that do not always be...
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Tim Wu @superwuster.bsky.social · 13/08/2025
The United States is undergoing a major ideological shift in economic terms: from a modified free-market approach to command capitalism www.nytimes.com/2025/01/29/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | Trump’s Economy Looks Like Command Capitalism
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Tim Wu @superwuster.bsky.social · 13/08/2025
The problem with housing affordability is no joke; but assuming there's one cause or one solution is laughable
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Tim Wu @superwuster.bsky.social · 13/08/2025
Here are more details on how portable mortgages would open up housing supply: www.nytimes.com/2024/05/06/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | The Case for Letting Mortgages Move With Us (Published 2024)
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Tim Wu @superwuster.bsky.social · 12/08/2025
Mussolini (purportedly) made the trains run on time. If Trump wants a project he should force the freight train industry to provide good & reliable service to American shippers instead of trying to pump their stock prices
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Tim Wu @superwuster.bsky.social · 12/08/2025
Forget zoning for a min -- the US housing market would work better (more housing supply) if you could take your mortgage with you. I.e. sell your house and secure the mortgage with the new house. Portable mortgages are common in the UK and Canada: www.moneysavingexpert.com/mortgages/po...
moneysavingexpert.com
Porting your mortgage when moving
If you're moving house and want to pack your mortgage too, you may be able to port it. This Money Saving Expert guide tells you how and when porting works.
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Tim Wu @superwuster.bsky.social · 12/08/2025
Looks like E. J. Antoni, the new nominee for BLS head is a critic of "artificially" low interest rates. Let's see how that pans out www.heritage.org/markets-and-...
heritage.org
Government Broke the Housing Market—Only This Will Fix It
If you’re frustrated with being unable to buy a home today, you’re not alone. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, homeownership affordability has been near an all-time low since 2023.
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