- Big tech and social media can begin to fix a rack of problems they've created, Net veteran Jaron Lanier says, by shifting models to make the user the customer rather than the center of a lucrative ad model.
- Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) has pointed the way to that being possible, Lanier -- an Internet pioneer who's now an interdisciplinary scientist for Microsoft (MSFT +0.3%) -- tells CNBC.
- Next week brings another round of visits to Capitol Hill by tech execs: Twitter's (TWTR -1%) Jack Dorsey is testifying before House and Senate panels, and Facebook (FB -1.1%) COO Sheryl Sandberg is attending the Senate hearing as well, while Google (GOOG -1.8%, GOOGL -1.8%) CEO Sundar Pichai looks to be skipping it.
- The firms need to become more like "real businesses where the user is also the customer," Lanier says. "We need to go through that transition to clear the trash out of the Internet."
- "It works. Netflix proved it works," he says. "We used to think, 'Oh, nobody will ever pay for a movie online, because you can get them for free.' But actually, if you're willing to pay for them, they get better. You get peak TV."
- The current ad-supported business model has led in large part to social media being arbiters of speech, a role they're not suited for, he says. "It's a terrible role. Nobody wants them to have it; they don't want it."
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