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Internet developments have gone from exciting to dreadful. (lemmy.ml)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Idk if this is the right community for this conversation, but it's been on my mind and I want to share it with someone.

In the 00's every new thing we heard about the internet was exciting. There were new protocols, new ways to communicate, new ways to share files, new ways to find each other. Every time we heard anything new about the internet, it was always progress.

That lasted into the early teens and then things started changing. Things started stagnating. Now we're well into the phase where every new piece of news we hear is negative. New legislations, new privacy intrusions, new restrictions, new technologies to lock content away and keep us from sharing, or seeing the content we were looking for. New ways to force ads.

At one point the Internet was my most favorite thing in the world. Now I don't know if I even like it anymore. I certainly don't look forward to hearing news about it. It's sad, man. We've lost a lot. The mega corps took the internet from us, changed it from a million small sites that people created because they had big ideas, or were passionate about small ones, and turned it into a few enormous sites with no new ideas, no passion, just an insatiable desire for money.

We're at the end of an era, and unlike the last 20 years of progress, I don't think most of us will like what the next era brings.

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[–] [email protected] 75 points 1 year ago (9 children)

Edit: in short terms: Capitalism took the internet from the people.

Well said. The Internet was certainly a lot more fun before anyone figured out how to make money on it. But it's insane that these companies make more money now than even the largest giants did when I was a kid, and it's still not enough for them. I'm just flabbergasted by their insatiable desire. They could keep a good product and still pull insane profits, but they're willing to burn it all down for another percentage point on their quarterly return. I guess that's a change to the world in general now too. There used to be a common wisdom that if you built a great product, and made your customers happy, you'd be successful. The prevailing attitude now is that the success that comes from that isn't enough anymore. You need to make the worst product that you're still able to sell, and then make sure you sell it to the same people multiple times. It's gross.

[–] [email protected] 52 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It’s the cancer that capitalism truly is. If you’re not growing, you’re failing and enshittification is an inevitable late stage consequence of capitalism.

It’s just pump and dump.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago (1 children)

enshittification is an inevitable late stage consequence

Maybe, but I don't think it is. Enshittification is a direct result of our tax policy that encourages cashing out, only looks at the short term, and requires constant growth.

There was a time when companies built a reputation and held onto it for a hundred years. We could go back to that.

Tax the rich.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

Agreed. We need to revert to meaningful tax brackets and apply some new ones to prevent billionaires.

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