Ask Lemmy

I'm seeing an incredible turn towards the kind of organic platforms of the 1.0 web world. They may never hit the same level of popularity as the commercial platforms like Facebook and Twitter did, but these new platforms like Lemmy, Mastodon, and others are letting us build a new space.

Probably the best part is that so much of it is built on FOSS meaning that the monetization and enshitification by investors will have a much harder time taking root.

No, the platforms are enshittifiying, but the underlying nuts and bolts of the internet are still there untouched and so far every attempt by big tech to enshittifiy/proprietarize those has thus far failed

I feel like smartphones have just made people “internet lazy” - myself included. The masses just want to get an app and let it accomplish whatever you need, without worrying about any kind of enshitification as long as it’s free.

I'm starting to feel like the Cyberpunk 2077 version of the internet is not too far-fetched. It's split into 2 parts:

1. The "old net" - This has been completely overrun by AI programs that are so fast and powerful they almost immediately compromise any non-AI powered system that connects to it.

2. The "net" - Blocked off from the old net by the "Blackwall" (a big firewall that keeps all AI out) is basically your standard internet that humans use via cybernetic implants.

I honestly could see AI basically filling the internet with so much garbage and malware that it becomes completely unusable. This is already starting to happen. However, if we create a new one with just human-controlled computers, I don't see how we could stop people from just connecting AI to that one.

There's a phrase that I learned recently that feels relevant to this. "Hermeneutical Injustice". It means injustice that arises when we are literally unable to meaningfully discuss our experiences with others. For example, "sexual harassment" is a relatively recent phrase, coined in the 1970s, a period when more women were entering the workplace, and employers didn't have policies for how to respond to workplace sexual harassment. It's a useful phrase, both legally, and interpersonally, and having access to this phrase that describes something that was previously hard to articulate ("you quit your job because your boss was complimenting you?") has helped us to reduce hermeneutic injustice by helping us to better understand and respond to the underlying phenomena (for instance, we now understand that people of all genders may experience workplace sexual harassment)

"Hermeneutic injustice" is why I think the ridiculous prevalence of the word "enshittification" is a good thing. People have latched into that because although it may be a new word, the phenomena it describes have been happening for a while now. I've even seen less techy people using it. The anger I've been seeing extends beyond people who know about "enshittification", but its spread and usage is a useful snapshot of how many are feeling. It makes me feel hopeful.

I'm sleepy right now so I'll not attempt to discuss more concrete things driving this hope (such as "small web", Fediverse etc.), but the short of it is that I have a lot of faith in people. Leaning on our communities is how we survive and resist this bullshit, and there will always be people who want to build things for the love of it.

It'll still 'evolve,' just not in a pro-user way.

The internet isnt a person or thing. Its a giant network and its literally whatever the nodes on the network want it to be. Thats why we are here having this discussion on lemmy.

The internet is so many different things all at once, you can't really generalize it or say the whole thing is being enshittified.

I think we all just learned a hard lesson about trusting companies where we are the product rather than the customers. People were very naive in the early days of social media, and advertising.

Never say never. Once the VCs wake up and realize there is no ROI left they will take their billions out of the pool and 90% of companies will struggle to actually create value from a hostile userbase.

You're asking that question in one of the places where it will be evolving. The fediverse, or something like it, is the future of the internet.

The internet, no. World Wide Web, unlikely. Commercial domains however have been shit and will continue to enshittify as long as people support their business models.

Never is a long time

This 'death of the Internet' talk really irritates me. It's not. Stop using the big websites and look for or make your own corner in the Internet.

I think the common person doesn't really care too much about anything except how many other people are on the platform.

If you could get a majority of people to use Lemmy or Mastodon, more would follow. The biggest barrier to attracting users isn't necessarily the layout, the content, the features, etc. it's getting people to know about it in the first place. The biggest advantage the corporate sites have, is advertising.

I only see advocation for things like Lemmy, Mastodon and other Fediverse/ActivityPub related sites on these sites. You're preaching to the choir. We're already here. Go advertise on Facebook, Reddit, Instagram, and Shitter. This only has the unfortunate side effect of needing to use Facebook, Reddit, Instagram and Shitter to advertise.

See the enshitified hotspots as fly traps for the limp minded. An authentic, simple, commerce free web is still out there, one just needs to look outside of the drivel served up on page one of mainstream search engines

Well we're literally in the middle of rolling out http3 so tech will never stop teching.

If you pine for the old internet spin up a BBS or PHPBB and enjoy some arcane discussions - those things still exist and hosting costs are cheaper than ever so if you pop 200 bucks into an account you can keep it going for decades.

So... I'm not sure if this is an entirely rational thought.

I'd always wanted to do ham radio but hadn't bothered. Before my time, ham radio let you do amazing things that weren't otherwise very easy. Like have a group chat with a bunch of people all over the world. Except when I was looking for things to do, you could get on the Internet and chat with a bunch of people all over the world ... without the antennas and hardware and all.

Lately some stuff happened and my spouse's friend who lives near Asheville NC and lived through the flooding there where ham radio was the only working form of communications, so my spouse got pressured into buying a radio, which means that I got myself a license because ... well, radio works without much infrastructure?

Mostly I figure I needed to fill the void that was getting on Twitter if something happened locally.

Like others have suggested already, I have no issue imagining the apparition of new space(s) that will themselves become true alternatives to the Web. Heck, the Web itself become the success it is as an alternative to other online spaces.

A bit like with TV. I have not owned a TV since the early 00s, because I consider TV mostly crappy content that is also over-saturated with ads, two things I'm not interested in wasting my time with. Luckily, there are alternative ways to access visual content that don't require me to watch a TV. But TV still exists for people that like it.

The real question should be: will people be willing to move away from what the web is becoming/has become, the place where all their friends/family/colleagues are, in order to populate a less shitty but newer kind of space? Looking around me, I have some doubts. I remember when blogs were new and cool. The intensity/quality in some of them was great and there were large readership. Today, it's barely if anyone will click on link that doesn't point to YT (or reddit, or some other social media)... That doesn't bode well, imho.

So the answer is no but only because the web is only one part of the internet. Someone somewhere will create a new protocol that we never thought off and start a new service and no I'm not taking about the web3 scam and crypto. Stuff like gemini and tildeverse are pockets of the 90s internet. Still alive and kicking.

They've ensured the opposite IMO

Every time someone spells it with a single 't', my mind pronounces it as shite instead of shit.

Enshittification is a consequence of private equity investments, so no. Companies who don’t take money from private equity will actually innovate. Whether they can survive the monopolies that do take private equity investments is another question.

The real problem is the need for constant revenue growth. If a company doesn’t care about constantly growing their revenue, they can put their funds toward long term projects that may not pay out until many years down the road. Those are the companies that truly innovate.

Plus there’s always room for new companies to come in and innovate, even with private equity money. Just don’t expect that from the already established companies.