what is wrong with the internet?
I just have the feeling recently, that the web is getting worse. Even more than I have thought it to be. But let me start from the beginning.
The internet, as I used to know it, has kind of ceased to exist. It used to be a place where actual humans used to interact. But recently I can’t overcome the feeling, that I - ironically - have lost the connection to actual real human people.
My first real experience of social media, after getting started with some long gone sites or facebook, was instagram. And I have enjoyed the engagement so much. Just sharing photographs I took with my first iPhone, interacting with other accounts that concentrated on photography was awesome. But eventually something changed. I can not recall exactly when or what has changed, it happened so slowly and gradually over the course of over a decade, that I just have accepted the changes. Was it reels, the rise of bots, influencers, whatnot? I don’t know. And honestly I don’t give a fuck what exactly was the final nail to the coffin here. All I’m going to say is, that I hate it! Social media now just robs you of all your energy. Yeah we spam each other with memes and stuff, but do we really interact?
Even forums that used to be so helpful, because of the interaction is filled now with useless shit. The flooding of AI content is one thing to consider. No need to elaborate this even further. But who the fuck decided to use auto AI translation on every damn thing, even audio in youtube videos?! Give me a break here, please.
The feeling I get from all this, is not just that I am pissed because of inconvenience: This is an upright “fuck u dear average internet user, we will take your autonomy now”. Now think about that fore a mere second please. What will this road lead us to? I am afraid that the consequence of this will even further strengthen the already fogginess of the post-factual era we already live in. That worries me. It makes me sad. This doesn’t mean, that I’m against the use of AI in general. Nothing could be further from the truth. But we have to see it as what these things are. They are (at this point) not intelligent, they do not produce anything new. These are tools which I want do decide over when and how to use and not be dictated by!
And this feeling of being dictated, imposed on, stretches into fields I have never even imagined of. Let’s take gaming for example. Things like gaming chats or SBMM. Once you have been able to communicate with your opponents in game chats. Gone. You want to play a casual round of CoD? Nah bro, here is SBMM and now sweat. Now that kind of stuff makes me feel disconnected while having the fastest Internet connection I ever had (that’s actually a lie).
I guess what I want to say here could be broken down into one single question everyone should think about: Whom should this amazing technology of connections serve? My answer? Humanity. What even this means…
blxt.
jan 08_2025