The Internet Is Dead conspiracy theory. Do you believe it in some degree?

[BuriedTartaria]

Please feel free to correct where I'm wrong but this is the general idea of the Internet Is Dead theory as far as I understand it. Around 2012-2017 the internet shifted towards being something driven by AI content creation working with corporations to essentially produce content for marketing and shifting public opinion. These efforts are done in things as minimal as bots making posts on Twitter, to bigger things like articles with certain messages pumped out across multiple platforms for extended periods of time.

Another way of putting it is that very little of what you come across on the internet was made by humans. So much of what we experience is empty, made by AI. The human soul of the internet found more prominently before the smart phone era is gone.





I believe this. I am blown away by how many "news articles" I skim through that feel so unprofessional, so numerous, I can't believe people are actually writing the articles and I honestly don't believe that anyone is even really reading the articles. it's like the articles just exist to serve as "wallpaper" for the internet.

I've seen so many active and thriving smaller-scaled message boards die over the years. They've become graveyards. I know people move on from things, including social circles. I get that. But nearly all "mom and pop store" message board experiences that used to thrive have become cemeteries. Where did everyone go?

Most likely the people who frequented those sort of social circles now just post on social media and reddit which the Internet Is Dead Theory would suggest was part of a plan; get the majority of the public to flock to a few social outlets to make controlling messages, advertising and shaping public opinion easier.



If the idea of the Internet Is Dead Theory is true (we are surrounded by an immense amount of empty content, not made by humans, we are essentially wandering through a hollow advertisement), it reminds me a lot of the societal decay I believe we are experiencing offline;

I was wandering through the University Mall in Orem, Utah today, as I often do a few times a year to keep an eye on its activity level (malls were the places to be in the 80s and 90s, look at them today, it's fascinating how society simply moves past things that were once amazing opportunities for communities to interact with one another). I was blown away that more remodeling is happening. I feel like they remodel the same section over and over into different iterations of a community playground that is never successful and then gets scrapped for trying the same thing again.

As I wandered through the mall I was surrounded by many stores with a lot of merchandise. There were shoppers, but they were few. There were people standing outside shops ready to speak to any one walking past them to try and sell something. (I feel so bad for people with jobs like that, my heart goes out for them and I try to be kind when they talk to me). It hit me later on that I sort of experienced the "Internet Is Dead" theory at that mall today. I was surrounded by under-performing stores with products and messaging/advertisements but the fellow humans around me were few. Which is essentially the situation the internet is in if this theory is true


I feel like there is such an empty, sterile feeling to the world around us yet the world feels so crowded at the same time.

I don't think things used to feel this empty and disconnected in the real world.

I think there is a soul to the world that has declined, or that societal decline is happening. I think this loss of soul has caused communities and connections to suffer and not be as strong. I think this has been felt in a profound way in the United States. I wonder if it has anything to do with the notion of a "turning" happening and I think the Dead Internet concept is evidence of this loss of soul in the world.

Here is a link to a thread on this theory (from a mom and pop sort of message board) which I understand to be one of the best places for familiarizing yourself with the general idea of this theory; https://forum.agoraroad.com/index.php?t ... 011/page-3

[JohnnyL]

I agree, but I'd say, the internet as we knew it is dead. Lots of AI produced things. General conglomerations. Top websites that used to be on page 1 of Google are now hidden back on page 6. Lots and lots of dead websites that were really, really good. There was an incredible amount of great information that can't be found now. I search for exact phrases sometimes, and there are no results. Nada. The Wayback Machine is a wonderful tool.

[NeveR]

Maybe we need to pool a list of 'real' sites and web resources? Support them, share them?

[Niemand]

I know what happened in some cases. The eejits moved onto Facebook - I know of several groups locally that did that. They've died as a result

Major bulletin boards and forums were shut down - two that spring to mind are Yahoo Groups, which I used for nearly twenty years, and the IMDB foruma which were like the Wild West. The latter was good because you got to chat about specific films/TV etc although there was a tendency towards everything being the best thing ever.

Another thing I notice.... it's hard to find things online now, I mean, really hard. I did some research about ten years ago on some non-political topics and that info is now harder to find. The reverse of what it should be.

[Niemand]

Maybe we need to pool a list of 'real' sites and web resources? Support them, share them?

One other thing I notice is that it is really hard to find contemporary blogs. I have found useful content in the past, and that's gone. If I find stuff on blogs it is usually several years old. Live blogs - which I know exist, I follow a few - don't seem to turn up on searches. It's basically the dedemocratisation of the internet. People flock to a few websites and one search engine.

This place reminds me of the old internet from the nineties - not commercialised, mostly good natured, and I learn a lot with a few folk who post long winded stuff and one or two rude folk.

Commercialisation killed the internet even before censorship as has spam.

Here are a notable websites which have gone downhill:

* Google search - you can't find anything on it.
* Yahoo - a former internet giant with once popular groups (now shut), search engine and comments sections (ditto), now reduced to peddling Covid propaganda and celebrity gossip. Little more than an email provider now.
* YouTube - now you can mostly find the very things you went there to get away from like Colbert, Kimmell and the major news networks... but not much indy content.
* Newspapers - not only are they dying on their feet, they won't allow you access to content without paying. Yeah, I'm really going to pay the Milwaukee Sentinel or Singapore Sling to get access to one article I have a passing interest in. Part stubbornness and part censorship.
* AOL - was never great, practically invisible now. MSN's own pages used to be better (but not good) and are now dismal.
* Geocities, Tripod etc all dead. Ditto Photobucket and various picture hosting sites.
* Usenet - Or should it be unused net now?
* Huffington Post, OpenDemocracy - both very much globalist aligned websites, the latter funded by Soros, but currently very low profile.
* Academic websites - no idea how universities do this but papers etc can be hard to search.

[anonymous91]

Please feel free to correct where I'm wrong but this is the general idea of the Internet Is Dead theory as far as I understand it. Around 2012-2017 the internet shifted towards being something driven by AI content creation working with corporations to essentially produce content for marketing and shifting public opinion. These efforts are done in things as minimal as bots making posts on Twitter, to bigger things like articles with certain messages pumped out across multiple platforms for extended periods of time.

Another way of putting it is that very little of what you come across on the internet was made by humans. So much of what we experience is empty, made by AI. The human soul of the internet found more prominently before the smart phone era is gone.





I believe this. I am blown away by how many "news articles" I skim through that feel so unprofessional, so numerous, I can't believe people are actually writing the articles and I honestly don't believe that anyone is even really reading the articles. it's like the articles just exist to serve as "wallpaper" for the internet.

I've seen so many active and thriving smaller-scaled message boards die over the years. They've become graveyards. I know people move on from things, including social circles. I get that. But nearly all "mom and pop store" message board experiences that used to thrive have become cemeteries. Where did everyone go?

Most likely the people who frequented those sort of social circles now just post on social media and reddit which the Internet Is Dead Theory would suggest was part of a plan; get the majority of the public to flock to a few social outlets to make controlling messages, advertising and shaping public opinion easier.



If the idea of the Internet Is Dead Theory is true (we are surrounded by an immense amount of empty content, not made by humans, we are essentially wandering through a hollow advertisement), it reminds me a lot of the societal decay I believe we are experiencing offline;

I was wandering through the University Mall in Orem, Utah today, as I often do a few times a year to keep an eye on its activity level (malls were the places to be in the 80s and 90s, look at them today, it's fascinating how society simply moves past things that were once amazing opportunities for communities to interact with one another). I was blown away that more remodeling is happening. I feel like they remodel the same section over and over into different iterations of a community playground that is never successful and then gets scrapped for trying the same thing again.

As I wandered through the mall I was surrounded by many stores with a lot of merchandise. There were shoppers, but they were few. There were people standing outside shops ready to speak to any one walking past them to try and sell something. (I feel so bad for people with jobs like that, my heart goes out for them and I try to be kind when they talk to me). It hit me later on that I sort of experienced the "Internet Is Dead" theory at that mall today. I was surrounded by under-performing stores with products and messaging/advertisements but the fellow humans around me were few. Which is essentially the situation the internet is in if this theory is true


I feel like there is such an empty, sterile feeling to the world around us yet the world feels so crowded at the same time.

I don't think things used to feel this empty and disconnected in the real world.

I think there is a soul to the world that has declined, or that societal decline is happening. I think this loss of soul has caused communities and connections to suffer and not be as strong. I think this has been felt in a profound way in the United States. I wonder if it has anything to do with the notion of a "turning" happening and I think the Dead Internet concept is evidence of this loss of soul in the world.

Here is a link to a thread on this theory (from a mom and pop sort of message board) which I understand to be one of the best places for familiarizing yourself with the general idea of this theory; https://forum.agoraroad.com/index.php?t ... 011/page-3

I've been around since the internet went public, and sadly we kind of did this to ourselves.

What I mean by this, is that back in the wild west days there were all kinds of search engines all competing with each other. The most popular ones were called "meta-search engines, these would use the power of several search engines to help you find what you were looking for. This isn't the only way we searched for info. though. There were also a lot of forums, and messaging board systems to help you out to.

Then along came Google, and promised everyone that they would be the next best thing. Sadly, we believed them and turned them into the monopoly that they are today. They literally crushed almost all of the competition save a few stragglers (bing and duckduckgo). Google today literally controls what shows up on any given search term, along with several social media sites.

If you think about it, as a culture we have been conditioned to just accept this, and the information we have available to us is heavily controlled and monitored. For the most part, the majority of people use Google as their search engine, Windows or Mac as their OS, Chrome as their browser, Facebook and other social media sites. The majority of people have all of their information completely controlled. If TPTB are threatened by any information that gets into their networks, they just make it disappear, alter it, or send it into a black hole.

The funny thing is, the amount of information online is staggering, I would dare guess that the amount of information available to the average person though is less than 5% of what is actually out there, if that. Of course, to get to this information requires you to learn a whole different skill set. It is advisable to know your way around a Linux OS, know how to use firewalls, VPN proxies, and know-how to wisely navigate what is commonly referred to as the Dark Web. This, of course, requires you to learn how to do these things and to go against the common misunderstanding that the dark web is only for criminals. It is not illegal to access the dark web, but TPTB doesn't want you to be on there. There are definitely areas of the dark web to stay far away from ( I think these places are pretty obvious though).

So, what TPTB has done over the years, is to take the internet as a whole, successfully siphoned off a small portion of it, convinced you that this is all there is. Then they constantly monitor and manipulate this information to see how you will react. Furthermore, they are constantly releasing misinformation and disinformation campaigns to discredit anyone who is getting too close to the truth. This way no one knows what to think, the end goal is to cause confusion.

People can still make content and have it rank within the system though, as long as you're playing by their rules, otherwise, you are gone. Google is constantly changing the rules, thus moving the goalposts. For example, let's say you were sharing information about how you were dealing with your personal journey with Celiac disease. A few years ago, a lot of people would have found and enjoyed your site. Not so much nowadays, your site is going to be buried so deep no one will ever find it. That is because Google recently released the Medic update that intentionally buried your site. Google claims that only those who have proper active credentials (Doctors, Nurses) have the proper authority to discuss such important things when it comes to your health. So, since you are not such an authority Google sends you into a black hole.

The scary thing is that this generation is being trained to use the internet for everything. The danger of this is that TPTB can control the information, and literally control the people. No longer do they need to burn books and ban reading. All that needs to be done today, is to manipulate an entire generation with carefully curated content that you wish to brainwash how they think and react to any given situation.

[Refraction75]

Please feel free to correct where I'm wrong but this is the general idea of the Internet Is Dead theory as far as I understand it. Around 2012-2017 the internet shifted towards being something driven by AI content creation working with corporations to essentially produce content for marketing and shifting public opinion. These efforts are done in things as minimal as bots making posts on Twitter, to bigger things like articles with certain messages pumped out across multiple platforms for extended periods of time.

Another way of putting it is that very little of what you come across on the internet was made by humans. So much of what we experience is empty, made by AI. The human soul of the internet found more prominently before the smart phone era is gone.





I believe this. I am blown away by how many "news articles" I skim through that feel so unprofessional, so numerous, I can't believe people are actually writing the articles and I honestly don't believe that anyone is even really reading the articles. it's like the articles just exist to serve as "wallpaper" for the internet.

I've seen so many active and thriving smaller-scaled message boards die over the years. They've become graveyards. I know people move on from things, including social circles. I get that. But nearly all "mom and pop store" message board experiences that used to thrive have become cemeteries. Where did everyone go?

Most likely the people who frequented those sort of social circles now just post on social media and reddit which the Internet Is Dead Theory would suggest was part of a plan; get the majority of the public to flock to a few social outlets to make controlling messages, advertising and shaping public opinion easier.



If the idea of the Internet Is Dead Theory is true (we are surrounded by an immense amount of empty content, not made by humans, we are essentially wandering through a hollow advertisement), it reminds me a lot of the societal decay I believe we are experiencing offline;

I was wandering through the University Mall in Orem, Utah today, as I often do a few times a year to keep an eye on its activity level (malls were the places to be in the 80s and 90s, look at them today, it's fascinating how society simply moves past things that were once amazing opportunities for communities to interact with one another). I was blown away that more remodeling is happening. I feel like they remodel the same section over and over into different iterations of a community playground that is never successful and then gets scrapped for trying the same thing again.

As I wandered through the mall I was surrounded by many stores with a lot of merchandise. There were shoppers, but they were few. There were people standing outside shops ready to speak to any one walking past them to try and sell something. (I feel so bad for people with jobs like that, my heart goes out for them and I try to be kind when they talk to me). It hit me later on that I sort of experienced the "Internet Is Dead" theory at that mall today. I was surrounded by under-performing stores with products and messaging/advertisements but the fellow humans around me were few. Which is essentially the situation the internet is in if this theory is true


I feel like there is such an empty, sterile feeling to the world around us yet the world feels so crowded at the same time.

I don't think things used to feel this empty and disconnected in the real world.

I think there is a soul to the world that has declined, or that societal decline is happening. I think this loss of soul has caused communities and connections to suffer and not be as strong. I think this has been felt in a profound way in the United States. I wonder if it has anything to do with the notion of a "turning" happening and I think the Dead Internet concept is evidence of this loss of soul in the world.

Here is a link to a thread on this theory (from a mom and pop sort of message board) which I understand to be one of the best places for familiarizing yourself with the general idea of this theory; https://forum.agoraroad.com/index.php?t ... 011/page-3

I've been around since the internet went public, and sadly we kind of did this to ourselves.

What I mean by this, is that back in the wild west days there were all kinds of search engines all competing with each other. The most popular ones were called "meta-search engines, these would use the power of several search engines to help you find what you were looking for. This isn't the only way we searched for info. though. There were also a lot of forums, and messaging board systems to help you out to.

Then along came Google, and promised everyone that they would be the next best thing. Sadly, we believed them and turned them into the monopoly that they are today. They literally crushed almost all of the competition save a few stragglers (bing and duckduckgo). Google today literally controls what shows up on any given search term, along with several social media sites.

If you think about it, as a culture we have been conditioned to just accept this, and the information we have available to us is heavily controlled and monitored. For the most part, the majority of people use Google as their search engine, Windows or Mac as their OS, Chrome as their browser, Facebook and other social media sites. The majority of people have all of their information completely controlled. If TPTB are threatened by any information that gets into their networks, they just make it disappear, alter it, or send it into a black hole.

The funny thing is, the amount of information online is staggering, I would dare guess that the amount of information available to the average person though is less than 5% of what is actually out there, if that. Of course, to get to this information requires you to learn a whole different skill set. It is advisable to know your way around a Linux OS, know how to use firewalls, VPN proxies, and know-how to wisely navigate what is commonly referred to as the Dark Web. This, of course, requires you to learn how to do these things and to go against the common misunderstanding that the dark web is only for criminals. It is not illegal to access the dark web, but TPTB doesn't want you to be on there. There are definitely areas of the dark web to stay far away from ( I think these places are pretty obvious though).

So, what TPTB has done over the years, is to take the internet as a whole, successfully siphoned off a small portion of it, convinced you that this is all there is. Then they constantly monitor and manipulate this information to see how you will react. Furthermore, they are constantly releasing misinformation and disinformation campaigns to discredit anyone who is getting too close to the truth. This way no one knows what to think, the end goal is to cause confusion.

People can still make content and have it rank within the system though, as long as you're playing by their rules, otherwise, you are gone. Google is constantly changing the rules, thus moving the goalposts. For example, let's say you were sharing information about how you were dealing with your personal journey with Celiac disease. A few years ago, a lot of people would have found and enjoyed your site. Not so much nowadays, your site is going to be buried so deep no one will ever find it. That is because Google recently released the Medic update that intentionally buried your site. Google claims that only those who have proper active credentials (Doctors, Nurses) have the proper authority to discuss such important things when it comes to your health. So, since you are not such an authority Google sends you into a black hole.

The scary thing is that this generation is being trained to use the internet for everything. The danger of this is that TPTB can control the information, and literally control the people. No longer do they need to burn books and ban reading. All that needs to be done today, is to manipulate an entire generation with carefully curated content that you wish to brainwash how they think and react to any given situation.

Your post is amazing... and so true! The dark web is where people are actually free to share information uncensored....unfortunately the evil hides there too.
there is definitely freedom from censorship on the darkweb....but nobody goes there....

[Niemand]

Please feel free to correct where I'm wrong but this is the general idea of the Internet Is Dead theory as far as I understand it. Around 2012-2017 the internet shifted towards being something driven by AI content creation working with corporations to essentially produce content for marketing and shifting public opinion. These efforts are done in things as minimal as bots making posts on Twitter, to bigger things like articles with certain messages pumped out across multiple platforms for extended periods of time.

Another way of putting it is that very little of what you come across on the internet was made by humans. So much of what we experience is empty, made by AI. The human soul of the internet found more prominently before the smart phone era is gone.





I believe this. I am blown away by how many "news articles" I skim through that feel so unprofessional, so numerous, I can't believe people are actually writing the articles and I honestly don't believe that anyone is even really reading the articles. it's like the articles just exist to serve as "wallpaper" for the internet.

I've seen so many active and thriving smaller-scaled message boards die over the years. They've become graveyards. I know people move on from things, including social circles. I get that. But nearly all "mom and pop store" message board experiences that used to thrive have become cemeteries. Where did everyone go?

Most likely the people who frequented those sort of social circles now just post on social media and reddit which the Internet Is Dead Theory would suggest was part of a plan; get the majority of the public to flock to a few social outlets to make controlling messages, advertising and shaping public opinion easier.



If the idea of the Internet Is Dead Theory is true (we are surrounded by an immense amount of empty content, not made by humans, we are essentially wandering through a hollow advertisement), it reminds me a lot of the societal decay I believe we are experiencing offline;

I was wandering through the University Mall in Orem, Utah today, as I often do a few times a year to keep an eye on its activity level (malls were the places to be in the 80s and 90s, look at them today, it's fascinating how society simply moves past things that were once amazing opportunities for communities to interact with one another). I was blown away that more remodeling is happening. I feel like they remodel the same section over and over into different iterations of a community playground that is never successful and then gets scrapped for trying the same thing again.

As I wandered through the mall I was surrounded by many stores with a lot of merchandise. There were shoppers, but they were few. There were people standing outside shops ready to speak to any one walking past them to try and sell something. (I feel so bad for people with jobs like that, my heart goes out for them and I try to be kind when they talk to me). It hit me later on that I sort of experienced the "Internet Is Dead" theory at that mall today. I was surrounded by under-performing stores with products and messaging/advertisements but the fellow humans around me were few. Which is essentially the situation the internet is in if this theory is true


I feel like there is such an empty, sterile feeling to the world around us yet the world feels so crowded at the same time.

I don't think things used to feel this empty and disconnected in the real world.

I think there is a soul to the world that has declined, or that societal decline is happening. I think this loss of soul has caused communities and connections to suffer and not be as strong. I think this has been felt in a profound way in the United States. I wonder if it has anything to do with the notion of a "turning" happening and I think the Dead Internet concept is evidence of this loss of soul in the world.

Here is a link to a thread on this theory (from a mom and pop sort of message board) which I understand to be one of the best places for familiarizing yourself with the general idea of this theory; https://forum.agoraroad.com/index.php?t ... 011/page-3

I've been around since the internet went public, and sadly we kind of did this to ourselves.

What I mean by this, is that back in the wild west days there were all kinds of search engines all competing with each other. The most popular ones were called "meta-search engines, these would use the power of several search engines to help you find what you were looking for. This isn't the only way we searched for info. though. There were also a lot of forums, and messaging board systems to help you out to.

Then along came Google, and promised everyone that they would be the next best thing. Sadly, we believed them and turned them into the monopoly that they are today. They literally crushed almost all of the competition save a few stragglers (bing and duckduckgo). Google today literally controls what shows up on any given search term, along with several social media sites.

If you think about it, as a culture we have been conditioned to just accept this, and the information we have available to us is heavily controlled and monitored. For the most part, the majority of people use Google as their search engine, Windows or Mac as their OS, Chrome as their browser, Facebook and other social media sites. The majority of people have all of their information completely controlled. If TPTB are threatened by any information that gets into their networks, they just make it disappear, alter it, or send it into a black hole.

The funny thing is, the amount of information online is staggering, I would dare guess that the amount of information available to the average person though is less than 5% of what is actually out there, if that. Of course, to get to this information requires you to learn a whole different skill set. It is advisable to know your way around a Linux OS, know how to use firewalls, VPN proxies, and know-how to wisely navigate what is commonly referred to as the Dark Web. This, of course, requires you to learn how to do these things and to go against the common misunderstanding that the dark web is only for criminals. It is not illegal to access the dark web, but TPTB doesn't want you to be on there. There are definitely areas of the dark web to stay far away from ( I think these places are pretty obvious though).

So, what TPTB has done over the years, is to take the internet as a whole, successfully siphoned off a small portion of it, convinced you that this is all there is. Then they constantly monitor and manipulate this information to see how you will react. Furthermore, they are constantly releasing misinformation and disinformation campaigns to discredit anyone who is getting too close to the truth. This way no one knows what to think, the end goal is to cause confusion.

People can still make content and have it rank within the system though, as long as you're playing by their rules, otherwise, you are gone. Google is constantly changing the rules, thus moving the goalposts. For example, let's say you were sharing information about how you were dealing with your personal journey with Celiac disease. A few years ago, a lot of people would have found and enjoyed your site. Not so much nowadays, your site is going to be buried so deep no one will ever find it. That is because Google recently released the Medic update that intentionally buried your site. Google claims that only those who have proper active credentials (Doctors, Nurses) have the proper authority to discuss such important things when it comes to your health. So, since you are not such an authority Google sends you into a black hole.

The scary thing is that this generation is being trained to use the internet for everything. The danger of this is that TPTB can control the information, and literally control the people. No longer do they need to burn books and ban reading. All that needs to be done today, is to manipulate an entire generation with carefully curated content that you wish to brainwash how they think and react to any given situation.

Your post is amazing... and so true! The dark web is where people are actually free to share information uncensored....unfortunately the evil hides there too.
there is definitely freedom from censorship on the darkweb....but nobody goes there....

The Dark Web gets a bad press, probably because of its name, but this is where most people's financial transactions take place without them knowing it.

[oneClimbs]

I build websites for a living and I am actively involved in many projects. AI can generate articles and such and I don't doubt at all that it is being used. There are commercially available products like https://rytr.me/ which can be used to generate entire blog posts and articles. And this is just what is commercially available. Many comment sections are filled with bots to keep people clicking. You've probably seen and interacted with many bots.

But a lot of websites are indeed real. My blog is real, there are no ads, no sponsors so what I write is beholden to no one. All the websites I've built are genuine and represent real companies. One of my projects is an online journaling service that has been around since 2008 and we don't have any ads, and we do not data mine or sell people's information. Everyone on the team is very liberty-minded and we honestly care about people's personal privacy. There are good people out there, it's not all dead.

But if you are talking about large sites that are backed by multimillion-dollar corporations, I guarantee you that they are all using every tactic in the book to track people, sell ads, and use whatever technology is available to that end.

Discernment is a key skill that we need to be teaching ourselves and our children. Judging between truth and error is probably the most important intellectual and spiritual skill we can cultivate in this age. Otherwise we are at the mercy of others and whatever "facts" they can invent.

[Niemand]

Leaving aside the invention of ARPANET in the 1960s, one can see a kind of trend through each decade of the internet. Approx. dates of course.

1970s - US military usage. Not genuinely world wide. Mostly classified, tightly controlled. Very simple, very slow. Monster computers.

1980s - Academia. Spreading into developed First World Countries. Not tightly controlled outside military although it went back to universities ètc. Slow and simple. No search function. Desktop computers, no colour.

1990s - Nerds. Most countries, dial up, speeding up. Emergence of world wide web, images. Next to no moderation. Usenet, web forums. Not much search function. Desktop with colour.

2000s - Normies. Almost everywhere fairly decent speeds, not considered exotic but still mostly accessed through PCs. Light moderation. Easy to find things. Microsoft taking over. Laptops.

2010s - Corporations. Clawing back the internet, making it mundane. YouTube, Social Media emerge, search engines monopolising things. Internet changes from a place to find things to a place to find out about you. Mobile devices, tablets etc. Very good speeds.

2020s - Back to the military/state? National internets with localised news, fact checkers, smart devices spy on you, may become implanted or always on you. Very hard to find anything, you're shown what to look at and think, the reverse of the 90s. A lot of AI content, Apps everywhere. Truly worldwide thanks to satellites everywhere.

2030s - Neuralink, compulsory to all.

[JuneBug12000]

Yes.

Video of pre-internet lie. Is the hoax a hoax and how could we know?

Jeremiah 9:And they bend their tongues like their bow for lies: but they are not valiant for the truth upon the earth; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they know not me, saith the LORD.

4Take ye heed every one of his neighbour, and trust ye not in any brother: for every brother will utterly supplant, and every neighbour will walk with slanders.

5And they will deceive every one his neighbour, and will not speak the truth: they have taught their tongue to speak lies, and weary themselves to commit iniquity.

6Thine habitation is in the midst of deceit; through deceit they refuse to know me, saith the LORD.

7Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts, Behold, I will melt them, and try them; for how shall I do for the daughter of my people?

8Their tongue is as an arrow shot out; it speaketh deceit: one speaketh peaceably to his neighbour with his mouth, but in heart he layeth his wait.

[JuneBug12000]

Please feel free to correct where I'm wrong but this is the general idea of the Internet Is Dead theory as far as I understand it. Around 2012-2017 the internet shifted towards being something driven by AI content creation working with corporations to essentially produce content for marketing and shifting public opinion. These efforts are done in things as minimal as bots making posts on Twitter, to bigger things like articles with certain messages pumped out across multiple platforms for extended periods of time.

Another way of putting it is that very little of what you come across on the internet was made by humans. So much of what we experience is empty, made by AI. The human soul of the internet found more prominently before the smart phone era is gone.





I believe this. I am blown away by how many "news articles" I skim through that feel so unprofessional, so numerous, I can't believe people are actually writing the articles and I honestly don't believe that anyone is even really reading the articles. it's like the articles just exist to serve as "wallpaper" for the internet.

I've seen so many active and thriving smaller-scaled message boards die over the years. They've become graveyards. I know people move on from things, including social circles. I get that. But nearly all "mom and pop store" message board experiences that used to thrive have become cemeteries. Where did everyone go?

Most likely the people who frequented those sort of social circles now just post on social media and reddit which the Internet Is Dead Theory would suggest was part of a plan; get the majority of the public to flock to a few social outlets to make controlling messages, advertising and shaping public opinion easier.



If the idea of the Internet Is Dead Theory is true (we are surrounded by an immense amount of empty content, not made by humans, we are essentially wandering through a hollow advertisement), it reminds me a lot of the societal decay I believe we are experiencing offline;

I was wandering through the University Mall in Orem, Utah today, as I often do a few times a year to keep an eye on its activity level (malls were the places to be in the 80s and 90s, look at them today, it's fascinating how society simply moves past things that were once amazing opportunities for communities to interact with one another). I was blown away that more remodeling is happening. I feel like they remodel the same section over and over into different iterations of a community playground that is never successful and then gets scrapped for trying the same thing again.

As I wandered through the mall I was surrounded by many stores with a lot of merchandise. There were shoppers, but they were few. There were people standing outside shops ready to speak to any one walking past them to try and sell something. (I feel so bad for people with jobs like that, my heart goes out for them and I try to be kind when they talk to me). It hit me later on that I sort of experienced the "Internet Is Dead" theory at that mall today. I was surrounded by under-performing stores with products and messaging/advertisements but the fellow humans around me were few. Which is essentially the situation the internet is in if this theory is true


I feel like there is such an empty, sterile feeling to the world around us yet the world feels so crowded at the same time.

I don't think things used to feel this empty and disconnected in the real world.

I think there is a soul to the world that has declined, or that societal decline is happening. I think this loss of soul has caused communities and connections to suffer and not be as strong. I think this has been felt in a profound way in the United States. I wonder if it has anything to do with the notion of a "turning" happening and I think the Dead Internet concept is evidence of this loss of soul in the world.

Here is a link to a thread on this theory (from a mom and pop sort of message board) which I understand to be one of the best places for familiarizing yourself with the general idea of this theory; https://forum.agoraroad.com/index.php?t ... 011/page-3

This is good, but the second part is better. It explains content drift and internet rot. I can't wait to watch part 3.

This goes along with my topic here:
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=65326

[EvanLM]

there is nothing wrong with dead . . . you don't need two way interaction with people to get the trivia offered by TV or internet . . . internet is just a combination of a bunch of gadgets and library information . . . that's all . . run by electricity . . just a large combined library and gadgets . .

btw: when syria was in war a few years ago. then I could look at them move their men and vehicles on google earth . . I wonder if there is access to Ukraine right now for the same information . . . again, just gadgets . . . nothing we haven't seen or heard before but now just combined information and gadgets . .

[BuriedTartaria]

This is good, but the second part is better. It explains content drift and internet rot. I can't wait to watch part 3.

This goes along with my topic here:
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=65326

I did not know there was a second video. Thanks for posting. I will watch it

[JuneBug12000]

Part 3. It gets better and better.

[Havenseeker]

Do you remember back in 2015/16? That’s when the “war” over anti-vaxxers came to a head. This was the moment we lost all ability to find blogs. There was a mass censoring of websites and all the “mommy blogger” and alt-health sites were dropped from search results. I remember watching it all go down and thinking “this is how the internet died.”

Now the only blogger sites that are findable are cooking ones. It’s almost impossible to do a general google search for gardening, health, or homesteading. A few of the homesteading ones with large followings will pop up, but generally on later search pages, with the first few page results being big named companies and their useless advice. (And I’m not talking about YouTube... i’m taking about real blogs with written content.)

Searching for any heath forums is impossible. Again big name groups or government websites are the only returns.

[JuneBug12000]

So I looked more into this.

I did try googling bread and could only get 419 results. . . total. That part is true. I did try a few other searches as well. There really aren't billions or even thousands of results available, just a few hundred for any search.

There seem to be two things happening.

1. People generally go to the same couple of websites for everything, no more exploring, so less www. pages are maintained. People just use a couple of large sites to store everything: youtube, instagram, facebook, etc.

2. The articles I read said that people are using apps instead of the internet to learn/do stuff.

Still, it is good to know it isn't just my imagination, it really is harder to find things on the internet.

[Niemand]

So I looked more into this.

I did try googling bread and could only get 419 results. . . total. That part is true. I did try a few other searches as well. There really aren't billions or even thousands of results available, just a few hundred for any search.

There seem to be two things happening.

1. People generally go to the same couple of websites for everything, no more exploring, so less www. pages are maintained. People just use a couple of large sites to store everything: youtube, instagram, facebook, etc.

2. The articles I read said that people are using apps instead of the internet to learn/do stuff.

Still, it is good to know it isn't just my imagination, it really is harder to find things on the internet.

Forgive me if I've said this before, but I wrote a book some years ago. Nothing particularly controversial, political or whatever. Nothing anyone would really object to. When I have conducted similar searches years later, I can't find the same kind of things at all.

It really is a different place.

This was discussed by the Bilderbergers in the noughties. I remember reading about it, and sure enough, a few years down the line. This.

[Niemand]

One genuine problem is that the internet does have a lot of accumulated trash. Dead websites which haven't been maintained for years and are hopelessly out of date. Porn sites. Commercial pages which are of no use to anyone anymore.

For example, I saw a page a few days which hadn't been updated since 2011. It was supposed to detail an annual grant/bursary. I've no idea whether said grant/bursary is still running or if it got cancelled.

I saw another recently which was a kind of link farm, except all the links were dead. The page was totally useless, and a waste of my time.

This is one get out clause Google and co actually do have.

[Niemand]

So I looked more into this.

I did try googling bread and could only get 419 results. . . total. That part is true. I did try a few other searches as well. There really aren't billions or even thousands of results available, just a few hundred for any search.

There seem to be two things happening.

1. People generally go to the same couple of websites for everything, no more exploring, so less www. pages are maintained. People just use a couple of large sites to store everything: youtube, instagram, facebook, etc.

2. The articles I read said that people are using apps instead of the internet to learn/do stuff.

Still, it is good to know it isn't just my imagination, it really is harder to find things on the internet.

Not just apps. I see these bloody QR Codes everywhere. QR Codes were moribund for years, then suddenly post-Covid they're being forced on everything and everyone.

The obvious benefits to a QR code is:
* They send a message to whoever where you are coming from and who you are. No more editing URLs to remove those pesky tracking add ons, or deleting cookies.
* They take you there without a search engine or the potential of seeing the wrong results.

[JuneBug12000]

So I looked more into this.

I did try googling bread and could only get 419 results. . . total. That part is true. I did try a few other searches as well. There really aren't billions or even thousands of results available, just a few hundred for any search.

There seem to be two things happening.

1. People generally go to the same couple of websites for everything, no more exploring, so less www. pages are maintained. People just use a couple of large sites to store everything: youtube, instagram, facebook, etc.

2. The articles I read said that people are using apps instead of the internet to learn/do stuff.

Still, it is good to know it isn't just my imagination, it really is harder to find things on the internet.

Not just apps. I see these bloody QR Codes everywhere. QR Codes were moribund for years, then suddenly post-Covid they're being forced on everything and everyone.

The obvious benefits to a QR code is:
* They send a message to whoever where you are coming from and who you are. No more editing URLs to remove those pesky tracking add ons, or deleting cookies.
* They take you there without a search engine or the potential of seeing the wrong results.

Our stake did an activity last week for primary. They gave all the kids a little card with a QR code in primary to bring home and use to upload info about the goals they set and accomplished.

We didn't participate.

Really turns my stomach to be honest.

[Niemand]

So I looked more into this.

I did try googling bread and could only get 419 results. . . total. That part is true. I did try a few other searches as well. There really aren't billions or even thousands of results available, just a few hundred for any search.

There seem to be two things happening.

1. People generally go to the same couple of websites for everything, no more exploring, so less www. pages are maintained. People just use a couple of large sites to store everything: youtube, instagram, facebook, etc.

2. The articles I read said that people are using apps instead of the internet to learn/do stuff.

Still, it is good to know it isn't just my imagination, it really is harder to find things on the internet.

Not just apps. I see these bloody QR Codes everywhere. QR Codes were moribund for years, then suddenly post-Covid they're being forced on everything and everyone.

The obvious benefits to a QR code is:
* They send a message to whoever where you are coming from and who you are. No more editing URLs to remove those pesky tracking add ons, or deleting cookies.
* They take you there without a search engine or the potential of seeing the wrong results.

Our stake did an activity last week for primary. They gave all the kids a little card with a QR code in primary to bring home and use to upload info about the goals they set and accomplished.

We didn't participate.

Really turns my stomach to be honest.

I notice the missionaries use it on cards... I think when combined with its use for so called "vaccine passports" that they represent something ungodly.

[Niemand]

At least we still have cat videos. More discussion of this. 11 minutes approx.