I thought about this multiple times, I’ve went digital minimalist and it partially is better, you just unlock so much space and mind relax once you are a few days without an internet connection. But I think that’s not enough. And the internet today is shit, like every communication media, if it isn’t permeated by enough novelty it starts being in control of the few and it starts entering game powers and becoming shit. Think of printed press, radio, TV: all great inventions but they all eventually just lost their original empowering and sharing purpose and became redundant stuff, getting worse and worse, more and more controlled, less and less free and reachable.

And this is happening to the internet as well, it’s not a novelty, it’s just that we’ve grown up with it, and as the tool is new its way of getting out of reach is new as well, and there aren’t worthy alternatives yet, at least not so used that you can even build very effective communities / new medias of communication on. It’s not even internet fault, it’s human fault. We love power games and control so much that we end up using our tools to destroy ourselves instead of empowering ourselves, that’s not a technological problem, that’s a cultural one. We are stressed animals, we’ve been like that for centuries.

I am also very very very, and I mean very tired. Every business wants to enter social medias, and every person who joins social medias ends up becoming the same: they want more, more followers, more attention, more posts. People are starting to lose actual human contact and interactions, even sex is starting to be more about a screen than body on body.

We have AMAZING tools. Internet is amazing, AI is amazing. We could solve so much of the world’s problems if we used them the right way, but we didn’t. We like becoming stale, we like to avoid novelty, to avoid connection, we are sick and stressed. We simply focus on the wrong things. All the time.

I mean think how software just progresses better if it’s open source, think about Linux, it’s just an open, novelty seeking OS. Even Linux Torvalds said that every kind of locking development with licenses, every kind, even GNU licenses that made illegal to close source the code, was detrimental to the development, he was an advisor of completely open licenses as MIT. And that’s because he loved what he was doing, and loved that the code was completely accessible and most companies originally were selling support, not their code.

Proprietary platforms mask the same ways to profit on you as novelty accessibility. They lock down their code and they make it stale, the problem is not even they wanna profit from it, it’s they wanna subtly profit on you without you being completely aware on what they are doing (whether we can still debate if money is a good way to exchange value between people). It’s they wanna play tricks on you. It’s okay if you sell a platform to someone for a service in exchange, it’s not okay to strongly push people on it, locking their machines down, closing down hardware and software on a single platform, influencing the politics, people’s view of reality, actively destroying alternatives, for selling your product.

They all knew what they were doing, but they saw the profits and started to ignore everything else.

Power makes people sick, power is our problem, the concept of power is something typical of a carnivorous animal when it predates other animals, or in hierarchical structures all deriving from the stress of the animal about not being able to satisfy its needs. And being so aggressive towards our own species to the point of creating institutions made specifically for that purpose is something that can arise just from a highly stressed species. We ignored the existing networks in nature and ignored that real harmony can be found in relationships that are more similar to symbiosis, not to predation. We are definitely capable of satisfying our basic needs as a collective species thanks to all our technologies, but we did never seek for balance, we seek for power. Instead of accepting death and pain we started to reject them, and in that process we created way worse pain and more death, and we became blind to beauty. Sometimes somehow we seem to realize it and create better situations, but history teaches that we always come back, it’s a cycle.

I don’t even think this can be solved by human beings unless we somehow change our brains, the alternative is some sort of external entity interacting with us, something that can be incredibly fast and distributed. Otherwise, with the help of our beloved technology, we’ve happily became so powerful that we can destroy ourselves.

No, not “off” the internet.

Off the big corporate-driven soulless sites, maybe. Smaller discussion groups/forums, dedicated services, etc. still works. It’s less tedious, less eating your brain.

Basically, going back to internet before central planetary services that feed on everyone being miserable.

I was told that I was as evil as the BTK killer a couple days ago. That was because I think circumcision is bad and female genital mutilation is worse. A couple weeks prior I was called a few dozen different awful things in a many many page dissertation about how evil I am. That one, because I made a one sentence joke about Hasan then trolled a 5 page response to it. So, idk maybe enough internet.

I viciously “edit” the internet as much as I can. I block toxic social networks and have deleted any accounts I had on them. There’s a Firefox plugin that lets you individually block sites in search results so you reduce scraper garbage SEO sites in your results. PiHole, uBlock, and whatever else that is available to block ads, tracking, etc. “-ai” when searching. Use SearXNG or non-big data search tools when able.

News comes from places like AP or Reuters. Not perfect, but better than half-true at best MSM clickbait.

It sucks. It takes work to enjoy what used to be better a decade ago, but let’s face it it’s been steadily downhill since ‘10 or so. I truly miss the “old” web. Yeah, it had its own problems, but it was far, far better and more egalitarian than this war zone of monetization and manipulation we have today.

I’m not going to completely give up on it, but I’m finding ways to be more selective about how I use it. I’m moving away from it gradually, as going cold turkey has never worked for me in the past. I’ve started buying physical books when I can, working on hobby stuff more, going outside to exercise, etc.

Corporate social media is outright abusing people’s minds for profit and is wholly unethical. It should be burnt to the ground and only mentioned as a cautionary tale. Anything with an algorithm should be treated with the same kind of caution we use for hard drugs. Honestly, I’m not sure any form of social media is good for your mental health anymore, but at least federated socials are organic and free range, so to speak.

Streaming and gaming I’m more conflicted about. I feel it’s obvious that the current business models most streaming and gaming companies use have contributed to a decline in quality and artistry in our media. Microtransactions in games should be held in the same low regard as corporate social media. However, I don’t think giving people access to a broader selection of content is harmful in general, it’s just the constant price hikes, seemingly arbitrary cancellations and removals, and shifting of content from one service to another that ruins it. With product placement becoming an accepted practice, we’re seeing more and more movies and TV becoming ad vehicles and propaganda platforms… But we could have a nice thing if creators were respected and consumers treated fairly by the major streaming services. Sadly, that’s not likely to happen unless the money dries up.

News… News is awful. Regan dealt broadcast news a fatal wound by repealing the fairness doctrine, but it was Facebook that finally buried it. When more people started to access news content through Facebook and Twitter than from actually watching the channel, news networks adapted by creating content that plays well in the attention economy, which basically means they generate as much rage-bait as possible. If it’s not outright propaganda or apology peices then it’s just political gossip aimed and pissing one demographic or another off. There’s not much point in consuming any news except long format articles from a few select sources any more.

Interacting with people… Back in the heyday of forums you could find a wealth of info and helpful people to answer questions on almost any topic. But most of those forums had a miscellaneous or off topic board where the chronically online could talk about what ever they wanted. Those places were always a minefield of trolling, misinfo, and general assholery. That’s basically what smartphones turned the Internet into, one giant off-topic section full of angry, chronically online people. I don’t try to find online friends anymore…

For me, I limit devices to specific purposes. My phone does calls, messaging, and the few socials I interact with plus occasional music for workouts. My tablet only plays music, has a limited selection of games, and my e-reader apps (no socials, no streaming, etc.). TV is only for streaming video. My laptop I’ll occasionally access Lemmy on, look up hobby stuff, and do online shopping with. Any gaming is on a steam deck these days, and usually single-player offline titles. Setting things up this way helps me avoid doom scrolling, buying shit I don’t need, consuming mindless Netflix content, and buying in to AAA game hype. It’s not perfect, but somehow it helps a little.

Your mileage may vary.

I mean I gave up on web 3.0, bloated to hell web pages and telemetry shit. Stick on the small web and fediverse much as you can. Its still fun but it’s like music, you have to look hard to find good things now because its not right out there in front of you because there’s too much of it.

Instead of giving up, keep learning so you can explain and help the non tech illiterate how to run their own servers and docker containers etc etc for when every application requires a brain chip supplied by musky to log in. A lot of the normies are lost right now at how all this works and no one is explaining it to them. Now, 98% won’t listen to you, but you can try

It’s hard to get a recipe off the internet without having to hunt for it after a 14 mile long backstory no one on earth cares about. To me, that sums up the internet. It’s damn near dead.

Fuck no I’m not, I’m just continuing to use it in ways I want rather than that make money for billionaires.

I always viewed the Internet as a kind of alternate reality growing up. But, then that started to change once “social networks” started taking off and all the normies (as some people refer to it now) started using it. Then it kind of started becoming almost “realer” than IRL, with algos optimized to manipulate people, and sophisticated propaganda campaigns. About 5 years ago, I noticed politicians started using language taken from the “gamergate” discourse. Now, the US admin is transparently trying to control discourse on the largest platforms, and official government institutions are poorly shit-posting.

So, yeah, it’s kinda disheartening how one of the greatest communication tools has turned into a tool for control. Though, in hindsight, I guess I should’ve seen this coming, even from fiction created a century ago. I think I remember some person saying that the Nazi regime wouldn’t have been possible without the invention of the radio.

In my free time on the weekends I disconnect and go outside and do stuff like hiking, climbing, airsofting, archery; then I come back to reality and it sucks

Not at all. Look at this beautiful corner we have made here.

Nope. Just about all the good things in my life, arrive through the intertubes. My anime, games, hentai, history videos, they are only really practical because of the internet.

The only pleasure I have outside the internet is food. And honestly, eating for pleasure is far more expensive than a good game. For $30, I can have at least a month of amusement. A good meal? Just a day of contentment.

Maybe I would feel differently if I could spend money without feeling anxiety…but meatbag activities like visiting third places, fills me with fiscal dread. I cannot leave my room often, else I risk poverty finally overtaking me.

I’ll tell you right now: many of those old corners of the internet… Are still there. A lot aren’t, but a lot still are. Seek them out, it’s worth it.

My internet experience is heavily filtered. I don’t see ads, I mostly focus on local news and events, and have certain keywords filtered here. It’s been so nice. It’s much less stressful dealing with my local and state community than everything else.

I’m ready to give up on most things.