> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.thedigitalspeaker.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# The Internet Is Broken—And We’re Letting It Happen
- URL: https://www.thedigitalspeaker.com/the-internet-is-broken-and-were-letting-it-happen/
- Published: 2025-02-17T12:29:37.000Z
- Updated: 2026-07-27T05:24:42.000Z
- Description: 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.
- Author: Dr Mark van Rijmenam, CSP
- Tags: News, #seo-post-1

Remember when the internet felt exciting? Now it’s a graveyard of tracking, paywalls, ads, and [AI](https://www.thedigitalspeaker.com/ai-speaker/) 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](https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/02/as-internet-enshittification-marches-on-here-are-some-of-the-worst-offenders/?ref=thedigitalspeaker.com).

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