The internet of the mid-2020s is very different from its original vision. Like it or not, users are now trapped in personalised rat mazes of algorithms & restrictive systems. What happened & how can we fix it?

In 1993 the “World Wide Web” opened to the public - bringing the internet to the masses. At the time, it promised better access to information & easier human connections. The freedom to go anywhere & do anything with personal choice & agency was baked into early internet culture & systems.

Over the past two decades the internet has been colonised by digital empires like Google & Meta (Facebook), who dictate the online experience of millions of users based on what is profitable (& what they can get away with).

Some internet profit motives:

A: Selling Stuff

Humans have been selling each other stuff for thousands of years, so this is not new. 3,800 years ago, when Ea-nasir wanted to sell copper ingots, he was limited by physical distance in Mesopotamia. Now companies can theoretically sell anything to anyone, hopefully in a mutually beneficial way. So far, so good.

B: Screen Time

Even if someone’s not buying goods or services, money can still be made by showing them advertisements or content to influence their buying habits or beliefs. We’re heading into dangerous territory here because if money can be made based on the time spent staring at screens, the profit motivation is to keep people staring at screens.

C: Influencing or Changing Beliefs

We like to think of ourselves as having solid beliefs - but in truth, we’re a lot more malleable than we care to admit. A good example is the constant push & pull of the “Overton Window” - the space that defines “normal” or “centre” political beliefs. Consider that ultra-wealthy people who can afford private jets & private islands should pay at least the same percentage of tax that you do & be governed by the same laws. If even a small part of your brain revolted at that very reasonable statement, that illustrates how valuable defining “normal” can be. Not paying taxes & avoiding jail time is worth a lot to some people.

D: Surveillance

Being able to track millions of users across the web has many advantages. For example - if someone listening to a certain music album makes them noticeably more likely to order pizza in the next hour & slightly more likely to buy over-ear headphones in the next month, that information is of value to pizza delivery companies & audio sellers. But this level of digital surveillance & data collection can be taken way further than shilling pizza & headphones.

None of these profit motives are new, but the internet has allowed them to be super-scaled across billions of people worldwide. Within my lifetime, tracking someone’s location or shopping behaviour would have required hiring investigators - now this information is available in real-time to a small group of tech companies.

This has created systems built around consumption, addiction, coercion, extraction & a lack of privacy. Under this model, a happy person spending phone-free time with their friends at a local park is bad for profits. Just a reminder: if you think I’m being inappropriately political, please reread C.

Over three decades, we have moved from people using technology to technology using people.

But there are still plenty of ways to use the internet to connect with people, learn & entertain that don’t involve being stuck in parasitic systems.

Which brings us to the point of this series of posts:

If you want to reclaim control of your online life, what can you do?

My aim is to release a post every week looking at ways to reclaim your internet.

Banner Photo by Susan Q Yin