In December 1993, the New York Times published an article about the “limitless opportunity” of the early internet. It painted a picture of a digital utopia: clicking a mouse to access NASA weather footage, Clinton’s speeches, MTV’s digital music samplers, or the status of a coffee pot at Cambridge University.
It was a simple vision—idealistic, even—and from our vantage point three decades later, almost hopelessly naive.
We can still do all these things, of course, but the “limitless opportunity" of today’s internet has devolved into conflict, hate, bots, AI-generated spam and relentless advertising. Face-swap apps allow anyone to create nonconsensual sexual imagery, disinformation propagated online hampered the COVID-19 public health response, and Google’s AI search summaries now recommend we eat glue and rocks.
The promise of the early web—a space for connection, creativity, and community—has been overshadowed by corporate interests, algorithmic manipulation, and the commodification of our attention.
But the heart of the internet—the people who built communities, shared knowledge, and created art—has never disappeared. If we’re to reclaim the web, to rediscover the good internet, we need to celebrate, learn from, and amplify these pockets of joy.
There are people who work late into the night creating something for the benefit of humanity or just for their own pleasure in creation. There are other people that take those things and bleed them dry to make profit to the point of ruination. There are yet others who use them to spew out hatreds that eat away everything good inside themselves and those that will seek out depravity. What we are getting in this is not the loss of any promise of the internet or the coming of AI but an uncomfortably clear reflection of what, in the mass we actually are.
Humans do indeed contain multitudes, but I think this gives too much credit to the influence of corporate (and their political interference) interests. Enshittification is an active choice made in board rooms. Disinformation is an agenda. They’re not inevitable grassroots outgrowths.
Lemmy, curated to avoid AI, curtail corporate news, and where the admins and community are fighting bots and trolls is an example of the reclamation attempt.
And you know what? It’s kinda nice here.
AI has been the most promising thing out to come out of the internet. It’s a new frontier. Like any new frontier there is a lot of propaganda to convince us all to take our eyes off it. The exact same happened with the Internet in the early days.