The internet isn't dying, it's changing(coryd.dev)
coryd.dev
The internet isn't dying, it's changing
https://coryd.dev/posts/2024/the-internet-isnt-dying-its-changing/
82 comments
I'm thinking of creating a site where user signup is limited to specific top level domains, like edu, gov mil, to stop bots and low quality content
>Decentralized isn’t either (the web is already decentralized).
Cloudflare.
EDIT: To those downvoting, you do realize how much of the internet relies on Cloudflare to connect server and client, right? Cloudflare is a bigger gatekeeper than Microsoft, Google, Apple, Amazon, and Facebook combined.
Cloudflare.
EDIT: To those downvoting, you do realize how much of the internet relies on Cloudflare to connect server and client, right? Cloudflare is a bigger gatekeeper than Microsoft, Google, Apple, Amazon, and Facebook combined.
To provide an opposing opinion which might help you understand why you're getting downvoted (though I didn't) - the reason this doesn't ring true to me is that none of your source-of-truth is actually hosted _on_ Cloudflared (they're just a proxy - you still control your own content), and the switching costs are minimal (especially if you're brave enough to raw-dog it on the public Internet without a CDN). That distinguishes it from all the other cases you listed, where either a) they could just disable your account one day, and you lose access to all the content that you stored on "their" servers, and/or b) anything that you built using their proprietary language/tool (Azure, CDK, etc.) doesn't translate easily to another provider.
You're both wrong. Cloudflare is breaking the internet by doing interactive verification of users, meaning the web is no longer an open protocol. I'm referring to that "enable javascript" page and "one more step" page. They require you to have Firefox or Chrome, neither of which are acceptable, which they verify with scripts and deep packet inspection. Contrast this to old school communication protocols which I could implement in an hour. I can't implement a Firefox in 100 years. Firefox can't even run on 95% of my machines, it just lags to hell once you open two tabs. And I need as many instances of Firefox as possible across many boxes to prevent being data mined. Cloudflare is the nail in the coffin for the web, they just not have advanced that far yet. Just wait until "something happens" and Cloudflare ups their policing.
Only for sites that use Cloudflare. There’s a huge portion of the web that doesn’t.
> I'm referring to that "enable javascript" page and "one more step" page.
Sorry, I have no idea to what you're referring.
But even if that is the case _for sites that are behind Cloudflare CDN_ - that still doesn't invalidate my point that Cloudflare _itself_ does not make the web decentralized. A lot of traffic _happens_ to go through it right now - but if it does "up its policing" in a way which is unacceptable, it is trivial for hosts to migrate away from behind it, in a way which is _not_ the case when 1. your content is irretrievable from the provider, 2. your social network is unmigratable, or 3. your product is built in provider-specific language/tooling.
EDIT: a sibling comment[0] helped me realize that what I'm describing is more like "lock-in-iness" than "centralization". Fair. Though - a "gatekeeper" from whom migration costs are very cheap worries me far less.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39687477
Sorry, I have no idea to what you're referring.
But even if that is the case _for sites that are behind Cloudflare CDN_ - that still doesn't invalidate my point that Cloudflare _itself_ does not make the web decentralized. A lot of traffic _happens_ to go through it right now - but if it does "up its policing" in a way which is unacceptable, it is trivial for hosts to migrate away from behind it, in a way which is _not_ the case when 1. your content is irretrievable from the provider, 2. your social network is unmigratable, or 3. your product is built in provider-specific language/tooling.
EDIT: a sibling comment[0] helped me realize that what I'm describing is more like "lock-in-iness" than "centralization". Fair. Though - a "gatekeeper" from whom migration costs are very cheap worries me far less.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39687477
You're wrong because you're just saying Cloudflare is making the web more centralized. The web is centralized by design and a defective technology. It costs money to host text files (and for no reason, see Bit Torrent for a counter example (and don't talk to me about unseeded content because you could literally just seed your website if you care about it so it would be no different than current web)).
> The web is centralized by design and a defective technology
Astonishing claims require astonishing proof :)
Astonishing claims require astonishing proof :)
The more viewers your website gets the more money it needs for hosting (unlike proper ways of serving documents, like Torrent), this naturally leads to centralization. The more americunts browse your site the more likely it needs lawyers and since you are now a business (which you shouldn't be because websites for profit are garbage), you have to act "responsibly", like a business. The more you publish stuff that goes against the grain the more your site will be DDoSed. Today even just not being polite is enough to get DDoSed by some kind of blue haired "anarchist". I mean this literally, not in some nazi way - merely writing the Spanish word for black regardless of context is enough for DDoS. You need professional publishers to imagine every single problematic thing you could write if you want your blog today to have a mere 1 million viewers. The more you do anything what so ever the more your website is pushed around and eventually has no choice but to go with some big enterprise data centers who has their own stupid rules like Cloudflare who blocks every second user for their broken firewall and constantly insists they are right.
I counter with the fact that hosting something means nothing unless connections can be made. Well, unless hosting in itself is your end goal.
Even here on HN, there are plenty of comments about how someone can't connect to a website because it uses Cloudflare and Cloudflare decided to block them due to a dirty IP address, shady (read: hyper privacy focused) user agent, CAPTCHAs that don't work (see prior factor), or other factors.
Some form of DDOS protection is desired in this day and age, and Cloudflare provides a very convenient service to answer it. Unfortunately, this means the vast majority of the internet is routed through Cloudflare making it a singular point of failure/denial. Aka centralization.
Even here on HN, there are plenty of comments about how someone can't connect to a website because it uses Cloudflare and Cloudflare decided to block them due to a dirty IP address, shady (read: hyper privacy focused) user agent, CAPTCHAs that don't work (see prior factor), or other factors.
Some form of DDOS protection is desired in this day and age, and Cloudflare provides a very convenient service to answer it. Unfortunately, this means the vast majority of the internet is routed through Cloudflare making it a singular point of failure/denial. Aka centralization.
Yes but it was the hosters choice to leverage cloudflare as a cache/cdn instead of other methods (that probably would have succumbed to the HN hug of death).
Eh, fair - I think we have differing definitions of centralization, though I can see that yours is actually more accurate. I was using it not to mean "a lot of traffic goes through this thing", but rather "it would be difficult for users of this service to migrate away from it if they wanted to", which I guess is more like "lock-in-iness". The SPOF property you describe is indeed undesirable and important to be aware of!
Humans were made second class netizens when ISPs made self hosting very difficult for individuals. While self-hosting doesn’t solve everything (and introduces its own problems) it does place control of content in the hands of people hosting it.
Facebook, reddit, and the rest should be protocols that your server can speak. You can allow/deny access on your terms.
But instead we ended up putting our stuff on other people’s computers and they went and blabbed it all over the internet.
Facebook, reddit, and the rest should be protocols that your server can speak. You can allow/deny access on your terms.
But instead we ended up putting our stuff on other people’s computers and they went and blabbed it all over the internet.
idk, every ISP I've ever had hasn't made it particularly difficult to host anything besides an email server on my residential service.
Eh what if we just make piracy legal for individuals given its unenforceable already, but illegal for businesses
What law do we need? More ignorant idiocy like banning incandescent bulbs? How do we get good law if nobody understand what they're doing in tech?
By electing more engineers to help lawyers instead of more lawyers.
But really we need to make it a requirement for congressional folks (parliamentary too) to divest from corporate sponsorship in order to be in office and that they understand that their seat can be revoked should they not follow the “will of the people” or whatever your constitution says.
In the US, more and more Congress people are on the boards or funded by Big Tech to the point where all it takes is a little one-on-one meeting and your entire stance flip flops. Is the US banning TikTok? Not? Yes? No? Now we aren’t? Oh it’s back on? Nope, nevermind.
I lost hope that Congress would ever understand science after Bush vs Gore.
But really we need to make it a requirement for congressional folks (parliamentary too) to divest from corporate sponsorship in order to be in office and that they understand that their seat can be revoked should they not follow the “will of the people” or whatever your constitution says.
In the US, more and more Congress people are on the boards or funded by Big Tech to the point where all it takes is a little one-on-one meeting and your entire stance flip flops. Is the US banning TikTok? Not? Yes? No? Now we aren’t? Oh it’s back on? Nope, nevermind.
I lost hope that Congress would ever understand science after Bush vs Gore.
When people say "the internet is dying" (and really, they mean "the web", not "the internet"), they don't mean it will cease to exist. They mean that it's changing in a way that makes it increasingly worse for them.
"Dying" is an appropriate analogy because if the decline gets far enough, it may as well not exist to those people who are affected.
At least, this is what I mean when I say the web is dying. Most of it is already nonsense of no value to me and comes with ever-increasing security exposures. There's not a lot further it can go before there is no reason for me to use it at all anymore.
"Dying" is an appropriate analogy because if the decline gets far enough, it may as well not exist to those people who are affected.
At least, this is what I mean when I say the web is dying. Most of it is already nonsense of no value to me and comes with ever-increasing security exposures. There's not a lot further it can go before there is no reason for me to use it at all anymore.
"He's not dying, it's his body just rapidly decomposing and ceasing to support the so called homeostasis, yes, but calling it 'death' is a misnomer". No, sorry, if it looks like a rotten corpse, smells like a rotten corpse...
The MAU of the internet continues to grow. How is it a corpse when it hasn't even reached its peak yet?
A decomposing body will be full of active organisms and life too!
You could have made the same argument about settler colonialism: No, the culture of the indigenous population isn't being destroyed. How can it be dying when there's more and more people living there?
You could have made the same argument about settler colonialism: No, the culture of the indigenous population isn't being destroyed. How can it be dying when there's more and more people living there?
[deleted]
When people say the Internet is dying, they typically don't even mean the Web, they mean one site on the Web that matters to them.
The article us a rebuttal to [1] where someone is complaining that Reddit is going public. For some reason this strategy, or indeed the need for reddit to earn revenue, seems to be shocking to the author.
To anyone with half a brain, and has seen the internet since it was an infant in the 90s, its obvious the internet is not dying, it's "growing up". It's waaaay better now than it has ever been, and a pale shadow of examples it will become.
Yes we can pause to reminisce, yes we can fondly remember the yesteryears of carefree childhood, we can fondly really the lazy days of summer. All while forgetting the sound a modem makes when connecting.
[1] https://www.wheresyoured.at/are-we-watching-the-internet-die...
The article us a rebuttal to [1] where someone is complaining that Reddit is going public. For some reason this strategy, or indeed the need for reddit to earn revenue, seems to be shocking to the author.
To anyone with half a brain, and has seen the internet since it was an infant in the 90s, its obvious the internet is not dying, it's "growing up". It's waaaay better now than it has ever been, and a pale shadow of examples it will become.
Yes we can pause to reminisce, yes we can fondly remember the yesteryears of carefree childhood, we can fondly really the lazy days of summer. All while forgetting the sound a modem makes when connecting.
[1] https://www.wheresyoured.at/are-we-watching-the-internet-die...
Don't agree. People are referring to at least a large part of it, basically the "visible surface" as exposed by social media + google. There are tons of good parts but if you wander it the way we used to wonder it in the 2000s and earlier, you don't see them so much anymore.
> All while forgetting the sound a modem makes when connecting.
the physical technology can improve independently of the (imho decline of) quality of the sites you visit.
the physical technology can improve independently of the (imho decline of) quality of the sites you visit.
A basic test is to ask how quickly you can find information about a topic that is unbiased by commercial interests.
On some topics it's nearly impossible: - medicine - cosmetics - cooking/nutrition/recipes
For many other topics, it's only really possible by finding forums where people who are not blog spammer discuss things. This used to be possible by appending "reddit" to a search term, but this is getting harder as Reddit's quality is decreasing.
On some topics it's nearly impossible: - medicine - cosmetics - cooking/nutrition/recipes
For many other topics, it's only really possible by finding forums where people who are not blog spammer discuss things. This used to be possible by appending "reddit" to a search term, but this is getting harder as Reddit's quality is decreasing.
I mean in all fairness, name one unbiased source you’ve heard of ever.
There are other search engines than google. I really have no problem finding what Im looking for except when I use google.
Genuine question - this isn't some "gotcha" sarcastic comment - but what search engines do you use that are an actual improvement? The only one I know is Marginalia, which I love, but is more of a discovery tool for old sites than for actual relevant information.
For a range of questions - ones which are complex to distill for google, I'm using ChatGPT occasionally.
I recently wanted to understand better the position of the rising and setting sun, and it did an excellent job of explaining where my mental model of the sun was inaccurate.
I recently wanted to understand better the position of the rising and setting sun, and it did an excellent job of explaining where my mental model of the sun was inaccurate.
Kagi is the big one. LLMs are useful for a specific subset of topics and questions. But mostly I do use KAgi
Google created the situation, but it's not the reason why data is held behind login/pay-walls everywhere across the net.
>> A basic test is to ask how quickly you can find information about a topic that is unbiased by commercial interests.
I'm not really sure that test tells you anything about the state of the web in general, and less the state of the internet, other than (perhaps) how good one site is at one specific query.
Plus you've picked categories (medicine, cosmetics, nutrition) which are rife with commercial interests, endless fringe theories, and plenty of "bad science". And, to be honest, the searches I've done for recipes over the past few years have all been very successful. But hey, maybe I'm lucky.
I'm not really sure that test tells you anything about the state of the web in general, and less the state of the internet, other than (perhaps) how good one site is at one specific query.
Plus you've picked categories (medicine, cosmetics, nutrition) which are rife with commercial interests, endless fringe theories, and plenty of "bad science". And, to be honest, the searches I've done for recipes over the past few years have all been very successful. But hey, maybe I'm lucky.
To those of us who remember them, internet forums were amazing. You'd have one or a handful of cool people who'd pay for hosting, and then you'd have a completely free to use web forum for whatever niche interest you had and wanted to learn more about, converse about, meet others over, etc.
Then, companies like reddit came on the scene with tons of borrowed money. Suddenly those forums were less attractive because, why pay money to host it somewhere on vBulletin when reddit was free? Just make a subreddit. And reddit was cool with that, for years. That's what it was for, afterall, and it barely ever made any damn money but the users didn't care. Why should they? It's not their problem. And Imgur came alongside it, too, to provide image hosting.
Then, the money dried up. Interest rates started creeping up. Suddenly all these services that had been free to use^1 for a decade or more suddenly had to put on grown up pants and be profitable, and not just regular ordinary profitable, but VC profitable. They had to go public and be big corporations and be worth billions of dollars. Then the enshittification starts. Service quality suffers. They start walling things off that had been free for again, a decade or more. Staff get fired and replaced. Companies are bought and sold. And soon all these "FREE" services are not only not free, but are markedly shittier than they were before.
And before the free market peeps come roaring in to explain how nothing is free, yes it was. It was free for YEARS, no not for everyone, you needed someone willing to buy an instance on a hosting service or whatever. But these sites came in to service a userbase that was already getting everything they needed for free, also for free, but centralized. And then once everyone moved over, only then did they put their hand out and demand money for doing exactly what enthusiasts already were, except they did it with massive platform sites that were bloated as fuck, mired in technical debt, subject to constant and often unwanted changes, scrutinized by advertisers with zero investment in their users who could blow away everything they'd put together in an instant because it was unsuitable to run Toyota ads beside.
So yeah, I get it, Reddit needs to make money. But maybe that being the case, they shouldn't have gone into a business that was demonstrably, provably unprofitable.
1: Yes yes you aren't the customer you're the product congratulations for having the most obvious observation about the economics of social media hot off the presses from 2011. Good for you.
Then, companies like reddit came on the scene with tons of borrowed money. Suddenly those forums were less attractive because, why pay money to host it somewhere on vBulletin when reddit was free? Just make a subreddit. And reddit was cool with that, for years. That's what it was for, afterall, and it barely ever made any damn money but the users didn't care. Why should they? It's not their problem. And Imgur came alongside it, too, to provide image hosting.
Then, the money dried up. Interest rates started creeping up. Suddenly all these services that had been free to use^1 for a decade or more suddenly had to put on grown up pants and be profitable, and not just regular ordinary profitable, but VC profitable. They had to go public and be big corporations and be worth billions of dollars. Then the enshittification starts. Service quality suffers. They start walling things off that had been free for again, a decade or more. Staff get fired and replaced. Companies are bought and sold. And soon all these "FREE" services are not only not free, but are markedly shittier than they were before.
And before the free market peeps come roaring in to explain how nothing is free, yes it was. It was free for YEARS, no not for everyone, you needed someone willing to buy an instance on a hosting service or whatever. But these sites came in to service a userbase that was already getting everything they needed for free, also for free, but centralized. And then once everyone moved over, only then did they put their hand out and demand money for doing exactly what enthusiasts already were, except they did it with massive platform sites that were bloated as fuck, mired in technical debt, subject to constant and often unwanted changes, scrutinized by advertisers with zero investment in their users who could blow away everything they'd put together in an instant because it was unsuitable to run Toyota ads beside.
So yeah, I get it, Reddit needs to make money. But maybe that being the case, they shouldn't have gone into a business that was demonstrably, provably unprofitable.
1: Yes yes you aren't the customer you're the product congratulations for having the most obvious observation about the economics of social media hot off the presses from 2011. Good for you.
Firstly, you're free to continue using Reddit. Clearly nothing is stopping you doing that.
Secondly, it's not like reddit is the only forums on the internet. The internet is as full, probably fuller, of communities than it's ever been. If you're only used to reddit (which clearly you're not, since you're here) I encourage you to explore a bit and find out where else you'd like to hang-out.
Thirdly, it's easier now than ever before to host your own forums. That way you can offer the free service you desire to many other people. And it'll cost you next to nothing since you can literally host it from home.
The change that is constantly happening brings opportunity.
Secondly, it's not like reddit is the only forums on the internet. The internet is as full, probably fuller, of communities than it's ever been. If you're only used to reddit (which clearly you're not, since you're here) I encourage you to explore a bit and find out where else you'd like to hang-out.
Thirdly, it's easier now than ever before to host your own forums. That way you can offer the free service you desire to many other people. And it'll cost you next to nothing since you can literally host it from home.
The change that is constantly happening brings opportunity.
> To anyone with half a brain, and has seen the internet since it was an infant in the 90s
I'm always grateful I was endowed with a full brain, I'd hate to be so easily impressed. My condolences.
I'm always grateful I was endowed with a full brain, I'd hate to be so easily impressed. My condolences.
> It's waaaay better now than it has ever been, and a pale shadow of examples it will become.
Why do you think it's better?
I think we have different definitions of "better."
Having to wade far more websites that want to sell something isn't better. My time is a finite resource.
Because of this, its worse.
Why do you think it's better?
I think we have different definitions of "better."
Having to wade far more websites that want to sell something isn't better. My time is a finite resource.
Because of this, its worse.
>> Why do you think it's better?
It's faster. It's always on. I can host at home, I don't need to host on someone's else server. The web part more secure - most everything is over HTTPS now. I can buy almost anything I want online. I can easily find information on just about anything. I can easily find videos showing me just about anything. I can (formally or informally) learn about any topics, to whatever depth I like. I can correspond with people all over the world, in real-time. I can work remotely from home. I can do remote support by seeing people's screens and see what they are doing. I can keep up to date with world affairs by reading a couple well-selected web sites. I can monitor the health of hardware remotely.
I could go on. But if a few web sites selling stuff is your main objection to the whole internet, then, I suggest you're letting imperfection get in the way of magnificent.
It's faster. It's always on. I can host at home, I don't need to host on someone's else server. The web part more secure - most everything is over HTTPS now. I can buy almost anything I want online. I can easily find information on just about anything. I can easily find videos showing me just about anything. I can (formally or informally) learn about any topics, to whatever depth I like. I can correspond with people all over the world, in real-time. I can work remotely from home. I can do remote support by seeing people's screens and see what they are doing. I can keep up to date with world affairs by reading a couple well-selected web sites. I can monitor the health of hardware remotely.
I could go on. But if a few web sites selling stuff is your main objection to the whole internet, then, I suggest you're letting imperfection get in the way of magnificent.
> It's faster.
It's marginally faster than 20 years ago. There's a 10x raw transfer rate speed up, but I've needed that 5 times for less than 30 in the past week. And even then it was 20% of the the max. I don't want 1Gbit/sec of crap.
> It's always on.
It was always on for me in 2004.
> I can host at home, I don't need to host on someone's else server.
Which I was doing in 2004.
> The web part more secure - most everything is over HTTPS now.
Everything is encrypted now, which better protects randos from looking at it, yes.
> I can buy almost anything I want online.
I though this was great, but was recently reacquainted with how much less work I need to do to see if I liked using something when I played with it in the manner I wanted to use it for.
I don't know where I stand on it.
> I can easily find information on just about anything.
I'd actually say this has gotten a LOT harder than 20 years ago because people keep wanting to sell me things when I'm not looking to buy something. I don't need storefronts when I am looking up how to use something I already own.
> I can easily find videos showing me just about anything. I can (formally or informally) learn about any topics, to whatever depth I like.
I read faster than I can listen to someone. And if I'm searching for something, I want to find it and then get on with my life.
> I can correspond with people all over the world, in real-time. I can work remotely from home. I can do remote support by seeing people's screens and see what they are doing. > [...] I can monitor the health of hardware remotely.
These were all things I was doing 20 years ago. Yes, I can now do it from the passenger seat of a car, but those are improvements in infrastructure unrelated to any of the major players on the internet.
> But if a few web sites selling stuff is your main objection to the whole internet, then, I suggest you're letting imperfection get in the way of magnificent.
Its not just "a few web sites selling stuff", its the fact that "a few web sites selling stuff" have caused everything else to die on the vine.
It's marginally faster than 20 years ago. There's a 10x raw transfer rate speed up, but I've needed that 5 times for less than 30 in the past week. And even then it was 20% of the the max. I don't want 1Gbit/sec of crap.
> It's always on.
It was always on for me in 2004.
> I can host at home, I don't need to host on someone's else server.
Which I was doing in 2004.
> The web part more secure - most everything is over HTTPS now.
Everything is encrypted now, which better protects randos from looking at it, yes.
> I can buy almost anything I want online.
I though this was great, but was recently reacquainted with how much less work I need to do to see if I liked using something when I played with it in the manner I wanted to use it for.
I don't know where I stand on it.
> I can easily find information on just about anything.
I'd actually say this has gotten a LOT harder than 20 years ago because people keep wanting to sell me things when I'm not looking to buy something. I don't need storefronts when I am looking up how to use something I already own.
> I can easily find videos showing me just about anything. I can (formally or informally) learn about any topics, to whatever depth I like.
I read faster than I can listen to someone. And if I'm searching for something, I want to find it and then get on with my life.
> I can correspond with people all over the world, in real-time. I can work remotely from home. I can do remote support by seeing people's screens and see what they are doing. > [...] I can monitor the health of hardware remotely.
These were all things I was doing 20 years ago. Yes, I can now do it from the passenger seat of a car, but those are improvements in infrastructure unrelated to any of the major players on the internet.
> But if a few web sites selling stuff is your main objection to the whole internet, then, I suggest you're letting imperfection get in the way of magnificent.
Its not just "a few web sites selling stuff", its the fact that "a few web sites selling stuff" have caused everything else to die on the vine.
> I read faster than I can listen to someone
That's just a matter of practice. Average reading speed is ~230 WPM, listening speed can easily reach 300 WPM (YMMV of course). Note that speaking speed is ~170 WPM. I'd wager you can easily reach 2-3x on most voiced content after a few weeks of practice.
Also note that audio processing is computationally much cheaper than video processing, which I don't think is just a coincidence.
That's just a matter of practice. Average reading speed is ~230 WPM, listening speed can easily reach 300 WPM (YMMV of course). Note that speaking speed is ~170 WPM. I'd wager you can easily reach 2-3x on most voiced content after a few weeks of practice.
Also note that audio processing is computationally much cheaper than video processing, which I don't think is just a coincidence.
When it takes the speaker 2x more words to ensure they mention their corporate sponsors, it's no longer an efficient way to get information.
> It's waaaay better now than it has ever been, and a pale shadow of examples it will become.
I think that depends on what you value. I've been on the internet from well before it was open to the public, and it's absolutely worse for me now than it has ever been. And getting worse every year.
But I say that because it's worse for the purposes I want to use it for. For others who have different purposes, it may very well be better. That doesn't change the fact that it is dying in terms of how well it meets my needs.
These days, the greatest utility I get from the internet is to use it as a dumb pipe between end points.
I think that depends on what you value. I've been on the internet from well before it was open to the public, and it's absolutely worse for me now than it has ever been. And getting worse every year.
But I say that because it's worse for the purposes I want to use it for. For others who have different purposes, it may very well be better. That doesn't change the fact that it is dying in terms of how well it meets my needs.
These days, the greatest utility I get from the internet is to use it as a dumb pipe between end points.
I think the internet, as in the ability for arbitrary attached hosts to communicate using global addresses and properly formatted layer 3 messages, has been under attack for quite some time - and reachability isn't getting any better
but yes, that's not what people normally mean.
but yes, that's not what people normally mean.
> "Dying" is an appropriate analogy because if the decline gets far enough, it may as well not exist to those people who are affected.
We need to start saying it the way we feel reluctant to do:
We need to start saying it the way we feel reluctant to do:
The Internet is getting exponentially shittier.
SEO-prioritization and poorly-regulated access to AI content generation are some of the emerging methods that help it get worse."Dying" is the correct word, because living people are being replaced by bots, both on social networks, and as content creators. Live people are being replaced by dead computers.
Last presidential election, I'm convinced I wasted endless hours arguing with knuckleheads who were actually bots using weaponized early LLM tech. This presidential election the tech will be perfected.
Machines can spit out so much content/chats/post so quickly, anything written or created by living people will just be swamped out. Eventually web search engines will just be so swamped by the automatic machine-gun-like production of content, that the probability of you being able to find anything written by a living person will be indistinguishable from zero.
Life will have been squeezed out by lifelessness; the internet will be dead.
Last presidential election, I'm convinced I wasted endless hours arguing with knuckleheads who were actually bots using weaponized early LLM tech. This presidential election the tech will be perfected.
Machines can spit out so much content/chats/post so quickly, anything written or created by living people will just be swamped out. Eventually web search engines will just be so swamped by the automatic machine-gun-like production of content, that the probability of you being able to find anything written by a living person will be indistinguishable from zero.
Life will have been squeezed out by lifelessness; the internet will be dead.
The article is a rebuttal to this .. https://www.wheresyoured.at/are-we-watching-the-internet-die...
drewcoo(1)
> "Dying" is an appropriate analogy because if the decline gets far enough, it may as well not exist to those people who are affected.
For how many people does the web actually cease to exist? Many people have seen social media as a dim light for many years now, yet most of the companies involved still exist. They may not be growing any more (or they may not be growing at the same pace), but that had to happen anyway. The world's population is finite. Only a certain percentage will be interested in a particular service. New competitors emerge. These companies had to plateau eventually and will likely decline eventually (as many have before them). No individual company, or even a generation of companies, can be regarded as representative of an overall trend.
For how many people does the web actually cease to exist? Many people have seen social media as a dim light for many years now, yet most of the companies involved still exist. They may not be growing any more (or they may not be growing at the same pace), but that had to happen anyway. The world's population is finite. Only a certain percentage will be interested in a particular service. New competitors emerge. These companies had to plateau eventually and will likely decline eventually (as many have before them). No individual company, or even a generation of companies, can be regarded as representative of an overall trend.
Yeah, into a dead internet.
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I'm sure someone, a very long time ago, said "The ARPANET isn't dying, it's changing." When a technology changes a large amount, we can safely say that the old version of it is dying or dead. The real question is: How much change does it take before we say that the Internet as we know it is dead and replaced with something else?
Ludwig ‘Word Games’ Wittgenstein would like to have a word with you
Dead Internet Theory (2021): https://forum.agoraroad.com/index.php?threads/dead-internet-...
TL;DR Large proportions of the supposedly human-produced content on the internet are actually generated by artificial intelligence networks in conjunction with paid secret media influencers in order to manufacture consumers for an increasing range of newly-normalised cultural products.Not a falsifiable theory, but I believe it anyway.
The Internet Is A Potemkin Village: Proof Of Dead Internet Theory?
Source URL: https://forum.agoraroad.com/index.php?threads/the-internet-i...
We should certainly be asking what on earth has happened to the undoubtedly millions of pages of content that people have created over the years about the various aspects of, dangers, and sentiments around climate change. Are they actually there somewhere, in the background, but for some reason inaccessible through Google search? Are they really just gone? We should also be asking: why would Google want everyone to think there are hundreds of millions more results out there than there actually are? In both politics and economics, a Potemkin village is any construction (literal or figurative) whose sole purpose is to provide an external façade to a country which is faring poorly, making people believe that the country is faring better. Is Google Search - the foundational product for a company worth $1682 billion in July 2021 - really just a Potemkin village for either the US as a country, the Internet, or Google itself?Yes, the internet is not drying, it's changing, just as corpse changes as it's decomposing.
Definitely isn't dying. The internet is a lot like main street. Still exists but after being decimated by big corporate, it changes to cater to alternate groups - which itself is attractive. Hacker News is a good example of this.
Talk about a distinction that doesn't make a difference!
It’s Balkanizing. Every community ends up having a general other chat channel and we’ve made all these small tiny islands for that general chat channel to be in. That’s what we’re losing. The hacker Slack that I’m in the Lisp enthusiasts group, the factorial discord. All those general chats are in their own tiny little islands instead of being in a bigger, wider world. That’s what’s changing. We’ve got these small private secret tiny islands and that’s great. I love them and protect mine and nobody’s allowed in unless you know someone. Is that the way it’s supposed to be? Because there are marauders out there that are just going to come in as bots and mine it for content if it’s not protected. We’ve lost the earnest here I am, out in the world sort of feeling, to be replaced by like oh, there’s a wild world out there and we better protect and put up a wall to protect the world around us.
I can tell you right now I’m going to be chewing on this comment for a few days. I think you’re really striking at the heart of a major issue here.
IRC is like that, the command line nature rather violently excludes all the noise from the signal such that those who still use it today are usually worth chatting with.
I see several converging factors
1) It’s impossible to distinguish between human and AI. Breaking a captcha is a resume building weekend project for any dedicated hacker.
2) The turing test has thoroughly been solved. There’s already a trend of accounts on reddit that reply with helpful but obviously ai generated content to farm reputation.
3) Spam and troll content is still an unsolved problem that requires a dedicated team to solve.
4) Communities themselves can be hostile, especially when the majority adopt black and white thinking.
5) Vetting new accounts is mostly done by verifying email or phone, and doesn’t filter out bad actors.
Some of these problems are solvable. The AI ones seem like a tall hurdle. There are some verification methods like video that AI struggles to replicate but it will soon be intractable to distinguish between human and AI online.
1) It’s impossible to distinguish between human and AI. Breaking a captcha is a resume building weekend project for any dedicated hacker.
2) The turing test has thoroughly been solved. There’s already a trend of accounts on reddit that reply with helpful but obviously ai generated content to farm reputation.
3) Spam and troll content is still an unsolved problem that requires a dedicated team to solve.
4) Communities themselves can be hostile, especially when the majority adopt black and white thinking.
5) Vetting new accounts is mostly done by verifying email or phone, and doesn’t filter out bad actors.
Some of these problems are solvable. The AI ones seem like a tall hurdle. There are some verification methods like video that AI struggles to replicate but it will soon be intractable to distinguish between human and AI online.
> 4) Communities themselves can be hostile, especially when the majority adopt black and white thinking.
many of these communities will inevitably fall into that thinking, even when they start out as a more open forum, due to selection bias, us-vs-them / in-group-out-group, and a tendency for more controversial, angry, or loud posts to get more views.
many of these communities will inevitably fall into that thinking, even when they start out as a more open forum, due to selection bias, us-vs-them / in-group-out-group, and a tendency for more controversial, angry, or loud posts to get more views.
And even if I’ve met someone briefly, who’s to say they haven’t wired a bot into slack to speak for them? At what point does it cross the line? I fully admit to using ChatGPT to help organize my thinking, but that seems benign compared to wiring up a bot and have it fully shitposting as me.
5) vetting new accounts for some of the more private communities is invite only, so you’ve got to know somebody. Limits the growth but makes sure there are no bots.
The 'open web' I think is genuinely dying, but it has been for a while. Generic/Garbage AI content is just automation and commodification taken to its conclusion, spam and SEO content have been driving the signal to noise ratio down for a long time.
There's no genuine defense against it and people are increasingly moving to private spaces be that Discord servers, Telegram groups, decentralized networks etc. that are more human in scale. Patreon funded creators and streamers are gaining against public broadcasters etc.
Unless someone has a really new idea how you can make a defensible, healthy 'public townsquare' (which Twitter in its newest iteration is definitely not) that kind of accessible web is wasting away rather than changing.
There's no genuine defense against it and people are increasingly moving to private spaces be that Discord servers, Telegram groups, decentralized networks etc. that are more human in scale. Patreon funded creators and streamers are gaining against public broadcasters etc.
Unless someone has a really new idea how you can make a defensible, healthy 'public townsquare' (which Twitter in its newest iteration is definitely not) that kind of accessible web is wasting away rather than changing.
> Unless someone has a really new idea how you can make a defensible, healthy 'public townsquare' ...
I think this change is that idea. The thing about a 'public townsquare' is that it's a square for a _town_, not the whole world. Social media today is trying to be a global square and has shown it doesn't work on multiple levels, so the pendulum's swinging back to human-scale communities and I'm here for it.
I think this change is that idea. The thing about a 'public townsquare' is that it's a square for a _town_, not the whole world. Social media today is trying to be a global square and has shown it doesn't work on multiple levels, so the pendulum's swinging back to human-scale communities and I'm here for it.
This is an honest question and something I happen to have been thinking about recently.
Recently I questioned my assertion that the internet isn’t all that great anymore, but I couldn’t really come up with reasons beyond the shitty bloated websites we are served.
It seems like we are lamenting the fact that the internet is providing exactly what was promised.
The only thing we didn’t anticipate was the amount of noise that would come with it.
But it’s easier now more than ever to tell your story online with very little expense.
With that said, I feel like I’m missing the mark and would love to hear other opinions.
Recently I questioned my assertion that the internet isn’t all that great anymore, but I couldn’t really come up with reasons beyond the shitty bloated websites we are served.
It seems like we are lamenting the fact that the internet is providing exactly what was promised.
The only thing we didn’t anticipate was the amount of noise that would come with it.
But it’s easier now more than ever to tell your story online with very little expense.
With that said, I feel like I’m missing the mark and would love to hear other opinions.
I wish community meshnets were more popular
You see much lamentation from older technical folks who came of age in the 80s and 90s and fondly remember the old internet. It is odd because all their complaints are almost entirely just about a couple social networks. Certainly facebook and twitter are dying. That seems like a really good thing to me but perspectives may vary.
I find myself wishing more and more that AI would hurry up and kill facebook and google, then we could get back outside and start guiding the growth of the internet as a global community as opposed to a couple silicon valley megacorps deciding what everyone sees every day.
I find myself wishing more and more that AI would hurry up and kill facebook and google, then we could get back outside and start guiding the growth of the internet as a global community as opposed to a couple silicon valley megacorps deciding what everyone sees every day.
Yes it is, and bootlickers -- the kinds of jerks who shadowban people -- cheer it on because they're bitter when they see others being creative or thinking originally.
You know what was great about the early web.
You had to have something going on between your ears to contribute. The gate was kept by brains.
X, FB, Reddit... prime example of what happens when you let monkeys loose with typewriters.
There are plenty of good parts of the web. There are still forms and communities where smart people are doing their own thing. GO look at communities around Home Lab, Home automation/Home assistant... The Linux kernel is still getting built on the back of a mailing list, and there are plenty of rich communities around the whole eco system.
The web is still great you just have to look for your corner of it.
You had to have something going on between your ears to contribute. The gate was kept by brains.
X, FB, Reddit... prime example of what happens when you let monkeys loose with typewriters.
There are plenty of good parts of the web. There are still forms and communities where smart people are doing their own thing. GO look at communities around Home Lab, Home automation/Home assistant... The Linux kernel is still getting built on the back of a mailing list, and there are plenty of rich communities around the whole eco system.
The web is still great you just have to look for your corner of it.
I'm looking forward to the AI-generated content, which was modeled from mostly AI-generated content, which was modeled from mostly AI-generated content...
It's going to be shit trees dropping shit apples exposing the next generation of shit seeds into the soil to generate more shit trees. And every reddit or HN or etc account that does not require actual ID verification will actually be AI bots.
It's going to be shit trees dropping shit apples exposing the next generation of shit seeds into the soil to generate more shit trees. And every reddit or HN or etc account that does not require actual ID verification will actually be AI bots.
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Not entirely sure how to explain it, not just internet, but the internet culture itself has changed dramatically. 10-15 years ago, it didn’t feel like everyone on blogs, forums, social media was chasing clout and financial gains. And even if they did back then, it just didn’t “feel” like it.
Currently, reading a single comment or tweet in good faith is pretty hard. There are obviously countless exceptions, but still, it’s tiring if you keep wondering about “what are they actually trying to achieve with this message?”.
In summer of 2016 we had this wild Pokemon GO phenomena that felt surreal. I didn’t really play much after a couple of weeks, but you could see the energy of different cities around the world by watching people outside. Would be very cool to see other mixes of internet with real life, but for some reason best we have gotten in terms of engagement is TikTok and IG.
Currently, reading a single comment or tweet in good faith is pretty hard. There are obviously countless exceptions, but still, it’s tiring if you keep wondering about “what are they actually trying to achieve with this message?”.
In summer of 2016 we had this wild Pokemon GO phenomena that felt surreal. I didn’t really play much after a couple of weeks, but you could see the energy of different cities around the world by watching people outside. Would be very cool to see other mixes of internet with real life, but for some reason best we have gotten in terms of engagement is TikTok and IG.
I see AI as a tool to express creative intent in ways not practical before it came about. It could be naivite full of unintended consequences. But it's hard to not focus on the benefits of the latest tech.
The current crop of tools are improving productivity in developing better software. Which makes me happy.
The current crop of tools are improving productivity in developing better software. Which makes me happy.
Is not death a form of change?
This is sort of what Gemini was supposed to solve, but as someone who is has medium level technical skills, I found no easy way into it, and the format was too ascetic for my taste and I only ever got a text-only version working as a consumer.
In all seriousness, the open web is under siege too. Hosting choices dwindled. Cloud providers few. Dark web isn’t the answer. Decentralized isn’t either (the web is already decentralized). We need legislation that protects humans and not corporations. Common carrier. Fair privacy law. Following privacy laws. And ending the piracy of content for the sake of “greater good”.
If I go to jail for pirating movies. So too should authors of bots that scrape content for training their $29.99/mo Alpaca. Or the click farmers driving up engagement for $9.99/mo.
The Pirate Bay is illegal yet OpenAI can pirate the world and get $1b investment.