The Internet is a shithole
What drained me of power over the past years is this constant fight of debullshitting the Internet experience for me and others.
You always have to use an AdBlocker, VPNs to circumvent all sort of censorship - and for that matter change the location often else you still get blocked; find proper news sources then find their RSS, add to an RSS reader, try to read locally if these websites allow you to....else go visit their bullshit websites.
Youtube is still by far the biggest, or the only in most cases, video platform. Now even with an adblocker the youtube experience sucks - they autoplay videos, insert shorts into your face, make you click things you don't want, and now insert AI generated video description for videos.. So you have to use an app for youtube that removes these piles of poop. But these apps are constantly blocked and won't work all of the time...
I don't even want to think about search which has become a pile of nonsense. Full of fake AI websites and now when pretty much all search engines introduced AI summaries...makes searching a painful experience.
Even Reddit, which can still feel like a "community" of people posting stuff from time to time, is a garbage. Full of fake posts and bots, and no way you can use RSS to follow subreddits. Login to see some content....endless scroll....all a bazaar.
I have to fight with "free" Wordpress plugins that insert ads into your dashboard, I have to block AI Summaries in searches, I have to keep Freetube up to date and often when videos do not work there, open in Youtube. I have to read my news in a semi-broken RSS reader since some cannot fetch all of the news, I have to install a custom OS on my phone then block ads there too, but now some banking apps do not work....a constant loop of poop, to protect yourself and your sanity, because everyone is there to fucking slice you open for a view, a click, a like...
Always always a fight against this destruction of the internet even tho all I fucking want is to read some reliable science news, watch some educational videos from time to time, and post some content or search for content. What the actual fuck....
I know why this is: TRADE. Same reason why the offline world is a shithole full of destruction, garbage, less nature, all about consuming and shops. This is what happens when humans have a primary goal of trading. Same online, these platforms are about trading, your attention, data, currency in return for a service. So it is a normal "enshitification" of the online too.
At least I have Friendica, Peertube, Nextcloud, Linux (TROMjaro) and the like, that allow me to still use the Internet in a sane way.
But man...such a shithole the Internet has become. I can't even imagine how "normal" people use it without adblockers, with relying on youtube, facebook, tiktok and such platforms....must be hell in the brain for these people.
I used to LOVE the Internet back in the days. It was like a park where you met interesting things and people. Now is like a metrostation full of ads and merchants, where everyone is in a rush to go somewhere else.
#enshitification #enshitiffication #internet #fedi #youtube #facebook #tiktok #reddit #alternatives #friendica #peertube
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Roma
in reply to Tio • •Exactly my feeling these days with the modern internet. I was updating my adblocker recently and had to disable it for a moment and then I forgot to re-enable it back and oh my fucking god.. I had to witness what the modern internet looks like without constanly blocking the shit flow of pop-ups, ads, banners and ai chat windows, fucking hell. I totally agree, I dunno how people use it these days without blocking anything, total disaster. I would be pissed off after a minute of using that shit.
There's this "joke" website to mock on the "modern internet experience" that for long time I giggled about: how-i-experience-web-today.comโฆ but we went even waaay beyond that already I think ๐ตโ๐ซ
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Tio
in reply to Roma • •I noticed people who watch youtube and have ads playing. I was shocked by the fact that they simply have accepted that. I would throw my phone into the bin if that was the case. Ads after ads after ads.
how-i-experience-web-today.com this website is really on point I swear!!
What a fucking shitshow the internet has become....but I am not surprised at all, I was sure it will become like this. If the incentive is to trade, then profit, data collection, restricted content and more ads are a normal practice...
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Mindaugas
in reply to Tio • • •as a regular user, my experience is better. I don't "fight" that much, but use alternatives. And install alternatives for others.
Some examples how I do it differently:
... Show more...- Adblocker (never used) -> Brave browser
- RSS reader -> Inoreader (paid service)
- Censorship -> I have not experienced it somehow
- Wordpress -> Drupal (a truly open source, clean without ads, non commercial experience, but has no templates YET, so it was very time and knowledge intensive to build websites with, but things are changing, and they are creating a 'template marketplace', it means commercializing 💰 a little bit, more info inv.nadeko.net/watch?v=WNEyg3U… (starts from 14:25), but it is reducing time needed to build a website. You may find some interesting things in this talk. What they are showing in this talk, is all new for me as well, despite me using Drupal since forever. They are completely reimagining how Drupal worked, or copying wordpress (and
as a regular user, my experience is better. I don't "fight" that much, but use alternatives. And install alternatives for others.
Some examples how I do it differently:
- Adblocker (never used) -> Brave browser
- RSS reader -> Inoreader (paid service)
- Censorship -> I have not experienced it somehow
- Wordpress -> Drupal (a truly open source, clean without ads, non commercial experience, but has no templates YET, so it was very time and knowledge intensive to build websites with, but things are changing, and they are creating a 'template marketplace', it means commercializing ๐ฐ a little bit, more info inv.nadeko.net/watch?v=WNEyg3Uโฆ (starts from 14:25), but it is reducing time needed to build a website. You may find some interesting things in this talk. What they are showing in this talk, is all new for me as well, despite me using Drupal since forever. They are completely reimagining how Drupal worked, or copying wordpress (and everyone's else) success a little bit. Yea, in the end Drupal is (or was, or still is) very clean, no adware, paywalls or premiums.
- Youtube -> I ~haven't opened Youtube in many years, but yes, it increasingly and ever more aggressively blocks alternatives. Alternatives as of now still work.
Mindaugas
in reply to Mindaugas • • •"Censorship -> I have not experienced it somehow"
Remembered few exceptions. Once I opened facebook (usually I never use it) and wrote a post about dangers of AI and it immediately disappeared, so I thought facebook was censoring it (and there are endless news stories about big tech censoring alternatives: facebook deleting info about linux or pixelfed, or x censoring info about signal or mastodon etc.). So yea, I had some little experience with big tech and immediately they censored.
Tio
in reply to Mindaugas • •klu9
in reply to Tio • • •@mindaugas
Re Youtube, I use #Freetube to avoid ads, autoplay, algoradicalization etc
Downside, it often breaks & you have to wait until the devs find a solution to Youtube's sabotage
ohai.social/@klu9/115245207831โฆ
klu9 (@klu9@ohai.social)
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Kellen
in reply to Tio • •Tio
in reply to Kellen • •Rokosun
in reply to Tio • • •Tio
in reply to Rokosun • •MegatronicThronBanks
in reply to Tio • • •It's making me think I should pay for an account, but $11 is too much. $3 maybe.