In Flux

<p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>In Flux is a hybrid work-part memoir part speculative essay-that chronicles Richard Seltzer's personal journey through the early days of the internet especially his time at Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) and his experience promoting AltaVista the pioneering search engine. Co-authored with his son Tim Seltzer the book traces technological change across decades connecting personal anecdotes to broader cultural economic and ethical shifts.</span></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>The book is structured in three major parts:</span></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>1. DEC the Web and AltaVista - An insider's retrospective on how the early internet was shaped by open access technological idealism and the cultural environment of DEC. Seltzer recounts his involvement in internet evangelism and the design philosophy of AltaVista emphasizing principles like equality of access textual search indexing and decentralized community-building.</span></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>2. Empowerment and Bias - A reflective section that blends sociopolitical commentary and personal narrative. It critiques the unintended consequences of early internet optimism maps out the tensions between grassroots empowerment and emergent monopolies and questions how individual actions shape or distort history.</span></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>3. Ebooks Copyright and AI - A forward-looking and sometimes cautionary exploration of digital publishing intellectual property and the rising influence of AI. It offers critiques of corporate control over content and user data proposing more equitable and decentralized alternatives.</span></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>Throughout the book weaves themes of idealism disillusionment and cautious hope arguing that technological shifts present both opportunity and risk and that ordinary people can nudge the future this way or that.</span></p>