I really, really think this video is overblowing it and doomering out for no reason. It's a very obviously Gen Z perspective. The Internet has gone through many transitionary periods in the past, this isn't going to be fundamentally different other than the fact that the change is decentralizing rather than centralizing like it has been for the past 2 decades.
I mean, we've seen an uptick in users of various websites turning to decentralized platforms/protocols lately, hopefully more people continue to join us on Mastodon, Lemmy, IPFS, ZeroNet, etc. I've been espousing the benefits of getting away from centralized authorities online for over a decade now, so it's somewhat relieving to see others getting a glimpse of why
Many Lemmy communities are currently at an acceptable point for a decent amount of user interaction. This is what has made me switch, and even though I knew federated socials for an option for years I didn't really feel like it was worth switching until now. Clearly, thousands of other people agree with me, and I think this trend will continue for the more techy and aware people in these communities. I'm definitely good with just having those people in these communities, but at the same time I really don't want the internet to get even worse for your average Joe, which currently... it still is.
I know it's not, because that implies organization and planning on the macro scale, but this feels like end goal. The Net didn't take off until commercial interests got involved (the first dotcom bubble) but ever since there's been a steady pressure for everything to be either something to buy things from, or something for people to buy stuff from. No middle ground.
It’s the end of the low interest rates internet, the only real options for the internet are and always have been massive walled gardens that enshittify and ruin UX a la AOL, and weird little communities run by volunteers and tech savvy dweebs. The era of three websites was only made possible by the US giving free money to tech companies for 25 years
It's not only internet companies. Capitalism as a whole seems to become more and more anti-consumer. Maybe we reached the point where further growth is just not possible anymore and thus the companies are coming up with more and more shit to milk their customers.
@hardypart@awooo That "fixed" title is an extremely optimistic interpretation of the video. The internet is dying, and capitalism is leading the firing squad. I don't see anything on the horizon that will flip that power dynamic.
What alternatives we do have are either worse (e.g. feudalism) or are so demonized in capitalist society any good-faith attempt at switching would be destroyed by a bunch of outsiders who know nothing about it (e.g. socialism (specifically, libertarian socialism)). And even if we do succeed in getting an alternative on the internet (or anywhere, really), the most powerful beings in whatever space we do it in will attempt to destroy us. The main reason for the "containment of communism", or the attempt to do so at least, was not "saving people" from communism but actually fear of its spread, and what a communist world would do to the powerful, capitalist countries of the west. (For the record, that actually was the cause, I'm not trying and don't want to spread tankie propaganda like Lemmy's devs are. We need libertarianism.) Capitalism, like most other systems, is fragile if people consider alternatives, so people have been made to not consider those alternatives, and as a result everyone is locked into this sinking ship, with many not even realizing it's sinking before it's far too late to do anything to stop it.
The only problem is we don't know what remnants we will have left when we finally find a good alternative, and that good alternative may turn out to be terrible in the long run.
In reality, I think that the main problem is that we've allowed capitalism to get to its later stages, and that we should've switched to an alternative long ago while it was still in its middle stages. Any way of life has problems, and the only thing that happens as it evolves is that those problems fester under the surface, eventually killing off most of the progress made because of it.
I'm very afraid another alternative is being conisidered here, and it's worse than any of these.
It's fascism.
And there's sadly precedent for it, economic crisis leads to political and social instability that can be cleverly exploited by appealing to peoples' emotions and putting them against an imagined enemy in other people, when the real enemy is hovering above us and cheering it on.
Indeed. And you can already see fascism becoming more and more popular in places around the world. The defining traits of fascism are so plainly visible that anyone with access to a history book can easily identify it. But fascism says that it is not fascism, but instead is the force for a better country, for a cleaner culture, for a more prosperous people, and so the followers do nothing except fight the people trying to attack it.
Sadly true here :/ my politics oppress ecology ,and left . But nazie fashit rally wen they burn LGBT center ? Nope nothing .they do fuking 'nothing against that .
Oooh boy, for sure it will and I'm really not looking forward to it. I still think a big bada boom is required in order to restore a society where people are not getting fucked over anymore.
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