Do you remember when the Internet was good? When it was a fun and creative space for individual expression, and not the wasteland of tedious memes, unsolicited ads, and crappy AI-generated images, endlessly scrolling by on our feeds, that it has become today?

If you used the Internet in the late 90s/early 00s timeframe and think that in that time period, it was a more enjoyable place than it is today, then you are not alone. Here’s a reddit thread where a user shares that same viewpoint: I miss the 90s/2000s internet.

The gist of it is that in the first decade or so of the World Wide Web, with the Internet growing but not as pervasive as it is today, the interfaces had a more stark and raw quality which invited individual creativity and control. As a user back then, you were exploring an evolving digital space and helping to create it. Today, with most of the planet online and a small number of digital platforms dominant, you are inhabiting an established digital space that was created by others.

For example, one of the earlier social media sites, MySpace (still around, BTW), allowed you to customize your user profile with your choice of backgrounds and styles – it even let you do this directly in HTML code. People’s choices were often garish and confusing – it wasn’t necessarily the most elegant of sites, but it was glorious in its embrace of individuality. Then Facebook took over, with its common profile format, where all you get to pick is two different images: a cover photo and a profile picture.

Similarly, in the early 2000s, there was all this excitement surrounding the “blogosphere,” which was a loose network of individual commentators, each with their own “web log,” or “blog” for short. Here random people of dubious authority would pontificate about the state of the world, and there was serious talk about how they were supplanting the “mainstream media” – that is, the old familiar sources of print and television news. I remember because I was one of those bloggers!

The blogosphere is mostly forgotten (says a guy on his blog), but the mainstream media is still on its way out, now being replaced by everyone’s favored source of news – that’s right, social media! This is possibly the worst way for you to discover what is going on in the world, as your feed is completely curated by algorithms designed to serve you palpable content in an information echo chamber. You will never learn anything new, only have your prejudices repeatedly reaffirmed.

These are just a couple of examples of how there has been a kind of homogenization of Internet content as the Internet has grown over the past few decades. This trend is connected to the way that big apps have become the primary source of content for Internet users, who find it convenient to go to one site (or maybe just a few sites) when browsing online. These sites are designed to engage users with satisfying content, since keeping users engaged is how they make their money. The trend is thus driven by both supply and demand, in a cozy little feedback loop that keeps users locked into their boring and predictable feeds.

Much has been made of this evolution (or devolution) of the Internet in online commentary. Writer and activist Cory Doctorow decries the “enshittification” of sites that lure users in with supportive features, only to pull the rug out once their user base was captured. Journalist Ken Klippenstein warns of the rise of an oligarchy of “appistocrats” with unprecedented social and political power. Meanwhile, writer and researcher Molly White acknowledges this degradation of online content, but reminds us that we still have the power to use the Internet creatively, if we choose.

I agree with her; despite the online space being taken over by corporate monoliths and becoming more of a curated and passive experience, it is still a place for individual expression and empowerment. There are plenty of people publishing independent writing online, such as on blogs like this one, and also on new platforms like Medium and Substack. The audio podcast is a new format which encourages individual creative effort, facilitated by the Internet.

Sure, Facebook sucks in general, but it’s also useful for staying connected with extended social groups, for sharing hobbies, and for organizing people – whether for a get together, or for a protest march. YouTube’s recommendation algorithms might be sketchy, but the site is a treasure trove of content in another new format: the video essay. This innovative art form has been so successful that many creators have been able to make a living producing it.

Maybe it’s just the nerd in me, but in my mind the Internet remains a huge boon for us as individuals. But I also acknowledge why one might think of the late 90s and early 2000’s as the Internet’s Golden Age, as it was more of an exciting and exploratory time in the evolution of globalized digitization. It was a time when the practice of going online was still developing, and so could be likened to a “Wild West” period of frontier development. Now the frontier is fully settled, everyone is online, and the young generation are “digital natives” – that is, they have no life experience in the pre-Internet age.

Back in 2011, billionaire broligarch Marc Andreesen wrote an article about how “software is eating the world.” His piece was really just promoting tech stocks, but in it he made a point that the ubiquitous presence of the Internet, what with everyone on Earth accessing it via smartphones and broadband, meant that online solutions to any conceivable consumer demand could now be readily implemented. Hence, software companies were replacing older companies: for example, Amazon had taken over the book business, and Netflix was taking over TV and film.

I just love his expression, “software is eating the world.” It suggests how all human knowledge has been sucked up – devoured, if you will – by online platforms. All geographic locations of interest are stored in maps programs for navigating, all scientific and historical knowledge is in online encyclopedias and archives, all audio and visual entertainment (music, film, TV) is available in some streaming service or other.

The marketplace has been devoured by the Internet as well. Since merchants and consumers can easily share information and transact online, everything a citizen-consumer needs to thrive in the modern world – transport, accomodations, dining, goods, services – can be accessed through a pocket device. Thus, software companies have taken over these spaces as well, offering near-instant gratification of all these demands, supplanting the older ways of doing things with a new “sharing economy” that leverages the global digital networking of humanity.

I’ve posted before, under the tag “Ruling the Waves,” about how technologies develop in phases, starting with more exploratory and risky periods, and ending with dominant players establishing the rules by which the technology will finally be adopted. We are clearly in this latter phase with regard to the Internet, with the rise of monolithic “Big Tech” corporations with huge captured user bases, and founders and executive officers who are among the wealthiest humans in history.

In the process of consuming all human knowledge and enterprise, these software giants have standardized and regulated it to conform to both their desire for profits, and to Internet users’ desire for convenience and reliability. Interfaces have become more streamlined and content more predictable – but that also means, well, that the Internet has become more boring. Hence the nostalgia for the Internet of the past, and the perception that those were the good old days when there was more fun, excitement, and freedom to be had online.

In this boring new Internet, information gets distilled down to just what is barely needed. Content becomes predictable, repetitive, tedious – everything just a copy or mashup of something else. Knowledge, such as it is, is reduced to the least common denominator. Software didn’t so much eat the world as chew it up and digest it into a uniform pablum, which it now spoon feeds to an addicted user base. Generative AI, feeding off all of this ingested data, only makes things worse.

This is a somewhat bleak and dystopian assessment, to be sure: the Internet as tool of corporate control, pacifying rather than edifying the masses. But it’s not like we can stop using it; it’s become part of the basic infrastructure of civilization, like roads and the electical grid. Truly, it remains an incredibly useful and empowering tool. We just have to be aware as we use it that it is not necessarily designed with our best interest in mind, that the vast amount information it makes available includes much that is untrustworthy, and that it many ways it is a waste of our time. The Internet ate the world, but the real world is still there – the Internet can simply help us to make the most of it.