George Packer

The invisibility of work and workers in the digital age is as consequential as the rise of the assembly line and, later, the service economy.

Part of the mystique of blogs is their protean quality: They work both sides of the divide between politics and media, further blurring the already fuzzy distinctions between reporter, pundit, political operative, activist, and citizen.

With work increasingly invisible, it's much harder to grasp the human effects, the social contours, of the Internet economy.

Walmart's period of explosive growth coincided with decades of wage stagnation and deindustrialization. By applying relentless downward pressure on prices and wages, the company came to dominate both consumer spending and employment in small towns and rural areas across the middle of the country.