It looks like I have tech mistrust or fatigue. Or both! On top of that, I am pretty sure I have work fatigue, which doesn’t help.
You may have tech mistrust or fatigue too if you find dubious websites (or no valid results) when you search the web even through a search engine that is not hell bent on forcing down your throat their own products or any sites or products that are paying them to do that.
I am talking about thousands of websites that look like no human is actually curating, e-commerce sites that through bad translations or dodgy coding return a selection of items so disparate that it makes you wonder just how broken their workflow is, blogs full to the brim with AI-generated images or videos that look like they are relevant but in fact are paragraphs strung together without any editorial care, or news sites that appear to mash up the same news, fake or otherwise.
The web used to be very niche at the start. I remember the time when there were directories of websites. Then the web was great for a decade or two when it enabled people with wide ranges of interests and hobbies to share information or sell their craft or wares, and when serendipity wasn’t just the proverbial prince but a king. The following web era got darker, just like its patterns, when a few big players took advantage of their dominating position and prioritised profits over meaningful and fair trade (information and wares alike).
The web era we’re in now is hell. I am talking about both the shitty monetisation popups (paywalls, auto-play ads, popins that steal your focus, etc.) or privacy and cookies banners, and the crappy content that seems to flood the entire web. I don’t understand how we are where we are. Or rather, I think I do and it makes me hopeless.
I will spare a few paragraphs and go right to the analogy: the web today is like a body of water that is so chaotic, so polluted and so unhealthy that it killed the smaller species and even the sharks are in danger of extinction.
I don’t know about you, but I am ready for the revival of directories of websites curated by people for people, and found through serendipity. How much worse will it get? I am both curious and very afraid. But also angry. And powerless. So I’m frustrated.
Are other people experiencing the same helplessness and frustration?
Or is it because “I’m in the field”, had a good handle of how it was and thus hopes for how much better it could be, that I see how fucked-up greed and narrow mindedness made the web, and all I want to do is escape?
Truth is I want to escape “the field” more often than not these days. But the field has shaped me! So I feel like I am no good in any other field. Worse, I doubt I am any good in the field itself, as I can’t keep up with trends, or understand the direction. It no longer seems like I belong. It’s a bit crazy at work with everyone busily making dents in their TODOs, not taking one moment to question the status quo, trying to please more and more stakeholders without meaning. It’s mad. I feel like a smaller fish gaping for air, dipping underwater and bobbing up and under.
I don’t know how to conclude this. So I’ll stop there.
Thank you for sharing that. Three thoughts:
Just the other day someone told me about the “dead internet theory”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Internet_theory . It’s mostly conspiracy and paranoia, but there is a grain of truth; namely the enshittification and the mobs of bots everywhere.
I don’t feel what you and the other two commenters describe (hi, Eric!). I wonder why. Yes, search results are bad, there is a lot of copypasta in content and a lot of bad faith in comments… but either I don’t see it being much worse than ten years ago, or somehow my browsing habits manage to dodge most of that, and I don’t suffer it. I don’t know. You mention adds: my browsers + extensions won’t let me see almost any ad at all. I buy very little online; what I buy mostly works. The handful of sites I visit frequently I consume mostly via RSS, or are good sources I trust, or are by friends (like you). Is it really that bad out there??
We who still write and blog, and publish and consume RSS, and care about ethical tools and licences and standards and openness… we are the resistance! The indie web, as the other commenter said. I don’t know if we’ll win. I don’t even need to win, to be honest; being in the minority is fun (and in this case, the right thing to do). This garden is beautiful. I guess I should feel sorry for future generations, or for the sheeple out there, OK. But I don’t know, they’ll have what they want.
Same.
And same again for good measure.
Also a person close to me has a Google Pixel and I looked at how it works and it’s even more painful to see how the Web is confiscated by the MAGA:
* A simple page share ends up in a share-dot-google link that sniffs your butt before giving you access to the original link — or you have to jump through hoops AKA hard-to-find submenus.
* Every search result is so tainted.
* Every SMS is stored (I have a firewall on my Android and yes, they want to have a copy of that too — and yes I’ll have a Murena soon).
You don’t need AMP when you have such control over users.
And the rest of the Web is going accordingly. The indie Web is a small pocket, not even a discoverable niche anymore.
So yeah, same: frustrated and considering the day I retire as a liberation from all of this. We’re so far away from Sir Tim’s vision. We grazed it and BAM!, greed happened.
Coralie, I feel this so, so, so much. Both the disdain, the bad feeling, for the web as it is and the want to escape but not feeling like there is something feasible to escape to.
All that during a worldwide crisis, environmental collapse, and an ongoing pandemic. It’s a lot.
Like you, I have no good answers. Just the sinking feeling that the web we wanted to create, which stood for freedom, liberties, and access, did not come together. It still may, and we have no other choice than to hope. But at this time, hope doesn’t come easy.
I’m sending good thoughts and virtual hugs if you want them.