An interesting read about how corporate internet has chased all the fun away in its chase for dollars. Why the Internet Isn’t Fun Anymore Lately on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, my timeline is filled with vapid posts orbiting the same few topics like water whirlpooling down a drain. Last week, for instance, the chatter was dominated by talk of Taylor Swift’s romance with the football player Travis Kelce. If you tried to talk about anything else, the platform’s algorithmic feed seemed to sweep you into irrelevance. Users who pay for Elon Musk’s blue-check verification system now dominate the platform, often with far-right-wing commentary and outright disinformation; Musk rewards these users monetarily based on the engagement that their posts drive, regardless of their veracity. The decay of the system is apparent in the spread of fake news and mislabelled videos related to Hamas’s attack on Israel. Elsewhere online, things are similarly bleak. Instagram’s feed pushes months-old posts and product ads instead of photos from friends. Google search is cluttered with junky results, and S.E.O. hackers have ruined the trick of adding “Reddit” to searches to find human-generated answers. Meanwhile, Facebook’s parent company, Meta, in its latest bid for relevance, is reportedly developing artificial-intelligence chatbots with various “sassy” personalities that will be added to its apps, including a role-playing D. & D. Dungeon Master based on Snoop Dogg. The prospect of interacting with such a character sounds about as appealing as texting with one of those spam bots that asks you if they have the right number. The social-media Web as we knew it, a place where we consumed the posts of our fellow-humans and posted in return, appears to be over. The precipitous decline of X is the bellwether for a new era of the Internet that simply feels less fun than it used to be. Remember having fun online? It meant stumbling onto a Web site you’d never imagined existed, receiving a meme you hadn’t already seen regurgitated a dozen times, and maybe even playing a little video game in your browser. These experiences don’t seem as readily available now as they were a decade ago. In large part, this is because a handful of giant social networks have taken over the open space of the Internet, centralizing and homogenizing our experiences through their own opaque and shifting content-sorting systems. When those platforms decay, as Twitter has under Elon Musk, there is no other comparable platform in the ecosystem to replace them. A few alternative sites, including Bluesky and Discord, have sought to absorb disaffected Twitter users. But like sproutlings on the rain-forest floor, blocked by the canopy, online spaces that offer fresh experiences lack much room to grow. I particularly agree with this observation: The best internet was the one with lots of interaction. Now I see people plug their faces into Youtube shorts for hours at a time, never once leaving a comment or sharing a video with a friend. Just a way to turn off their brains for a while.
That's why we have Too Hot and Swamp Gas, where there is no hierarchy, lots of interaction, and we can all equally piss each other off.
I can't even think of the last interesting website I stumbled upon. The Internet is basically like 10 web pages for me now, unless I'm shopping for something relatively obscure.
I only clear my browser history after I embarrassingly have to Google the proper spelling of a really basic word. I don't need anyone stumbling on that.
Glad I'm not the only one that does that. Sometimes when I do google it, the word still doesn't seem right. Weird.
How do I get to the Dark Web? There must be some good stuff there. Or is that just something from a movie?
I started facebook back up a few months ago to catch up with some old friends from school and work. It’s been great so far. If I dont like their posts I ignore them and down vote pop ups I don’t like. I’m a classic car and oldie Goldie music guy and get to see a lot of those.
I let my wife glean through the myriad of Facebook and Instagram posts until I hear her laugh out loud; then, I ask her to share, essentially delegating the mind-numbing search for something interesting and new. Now, I have missed a lot of food pics.
On X I get so many young “women” followers with half-nekid photo-avatars of themselves who all claim to be hot for me because I look so cute in my avatar (that’s a photo of my dog) and want me to subscribe to their online site. Block, block, block. Also have to wade thru all the sports betting ads and Laura Loomer posts. I open the app less and less.
I've always struggled with the notion of web surfing. From my earliest existence on the net, GC has been the first/last page I visit. I do get some interesting tips from posters on this site, though. Things about weather or science. I wouldn't know about the Athletic if it were not for GC. For me, it's pretty much GC, Youtube (music, yacht tour videos, whiskey reviews), and email.
I limit my recreational screentime to GC, Reddit, and Connections and whatever project I'm working on. Like, in currently preparing to build some DIY acoustic panels with movie prints on them. And of course, sometimes porn.
I suspect your concern is more about what this is doing to others than what is available to you, personally. There are more sites to visit than time allows for; it's up to us to pick the ones that give us what we are looking for. Quite often, the comment section is at least as entertaining as what is presented to be commented on. Not sure I'd value them for meaningful discourse, though. I tend to avoid sites like Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok unless it is sports related. Anything from schedule news to interesting stats to replays of fun or rare events. When it comes to news sites, I love how easy it is to find counter-perspectives of what is being presented. Sometimes it's hard to tell whether or not we're being presented almost exclusively with one bent angle, so it's interesting (at minimum) to seek out what an alternative perspective looks like. Even when proper Internet discussion is not available online where you'd like it to be, it's always material that can be brought back for discussion among live and present people. I think it's ok to "turn off" your brain for a while. Like with anything else, balance is important. Maybe it's not so much the "what" but the "how much?" Go GATORS! ,WESGATORS
Ha-Ha! Complaining about “far right commentary” and “disinformation” on the internet. Sounds like karmic payback for 2020.
