askchapo

It was planned. The Internet wasn't always this corporate, with very few Big Tech corporations having control over the websites that the vast majority of people use to communicate. Before YouTube cropped up in 2005 and Google bought them in 2006 (also with Facebook appearing at around the same time), the Internet was mostly comprised of individual, independently operated websites that were actually fun to visit.

We all know what happens when corporations (especially publicly traded ones, but also privately owned ones) take over anything, and that is what we now call enshittification.

A decentralized Internet is still possible, but overcoming the Network Effect is extremely difficult, and there are many people who think that a concept like federation is difficult to understand, without having ever tried a federated service, not including email. There's also the so-called "comfort" of switching to another corporate-owned platform that receives a lot of marketing (including astroturfing campaigns on the websites they are trying to replace) rather than a smaller, non-corporate owned platform that people don't think they can "trust".

It's like how the early internet was hard to use because it wasn't search optimized, the new internet is hard to use because there are layers of trash hiding the things worth finding

Slaves don't need an internet.

Intentional but not planned. Not in any kind of over-arching kind of way, at least. Just multiple opportunistic power grabs driven by 'line go up' next-quarter thinking.

When it comes to Google - I think it's just plain old greed. They want to keep you as long as they can at google.com so serving up shit means you'll keep googling. Also - I assume every single search is used to turn us all into AI guinea pigs.

What we were using the internet for some years ago really did piss off and got him frothing because DOES have ideological concerns that it wants to uphold, whether that is christo-fascism, "western Values" or just plain old keeping the endless money printer printing. All of this adinfluencerevenugamblification is a side hustle for the elites who do see the internet as an ideological battleground and [pathetically] want to win there. Elon Musk did buy twitter because he believes it turned his daughter trans and wanted revenge. That's a real thing that happened. And in the process he destroyed art spaces, discrete culture that will never be seen again as has happened time and time again.

I think it’s definitely both but there are actors out there aggressively pursuing the sabotage of communication that goes against their interests.

I think post-Epstein revelations we can conclude that part of the online reaction and its shittiest actors were deliberately coordinating to make things worse over the past decade+

We also know that these communications networks like the internet or even more specific spaces like twitter or WhatsApp have aided organizing and education for our cause.

So the math of it says we know it has benefited us and we know they’ve fucked with it in the past so I will say with 100% certainty the enshitification is still targeted and deliberate, on some level.

I strongly suspect we would be in a similar position even if we weren't living in a world of such blatant corruption. has known for a long time that they can make more money offering a worse product. Why should the internet be any different?

That being said, Elites are definitely taking advantage of it. If The Internet is a Dead Mall, it's a mall that was built adjacent to a college campus. The college campus has been a culture war battlefield for decades.

Knowledge is power. We are stronger together, which is why they divide us.

That is the appeal of the fediverse to me - a decentralized Internet that isn't solely commercial.