The Internet Is Broken—And We’re Letting It Happen

Remember when the internet felt exciting? Now it’s a graveyard of tracking, paywalls, ads, and AI hallucinations. What happened? One word: enshittification; the slow decay of once-great platforms into anti-user cash grabs.

From Google search burying results under AI fluff and ads to smart TVs turning into surveillance devices, the internet is in decline. Platforms follow a predictable cycle: attract users, exploit them, then degrade into pay-to-play mediocrity.

Streaming services, once havens for content, are now fragmented money pits. Even PDFs, yes, PDFs, are worse.

• Big Tech prioritizes profit over usability, turning once-useful tools into data-harvesting machines.
• AI-powered search creates more problems, drowning users in irrelevant, unreliable content.
• Subscriptions are rising, while quality declines, forcing users to piracy and workarounds.

The internet wasn’t always this way. It became this way. So, is there a way back, or is enshittification inevitable?

Read the full article on Ars Technica.

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