I mean I gave up on web 3.0, bloated to hell web pages and telemetry shit. Stick on the small web and fediverse much as you can. Its still fun but it’s like music, you have to look hard to find good things now because its not right out there in front of you because there’s too much of it.

Instead of giving up, keep learning so you can explain and help the non tech illiterate how to run their own servers and docker containers etc etc for when every application requires a brain chip supplied by musky to log in. A lot of the normies are lost right now at how all this works and no one is explaining it to them. Now, 98% won’t listen to you, but you can try

In my free time on the weekends I disconnect and go outside and do stuff like hiking, climbing, airsofting, archery; then I come back to reality and it sucks

I worry more what the internet is doing to children than to our rotten heads. Both are harmful but I have kids, and well once you give them a smartphone then who knows. Will some big corp ask them for face id and personal data? Fuck that but apparently it’s unavoidable

I viciously “edit” the internet as much as I can. I block toxic social networks and have deleted any accounts I had on them. There’s a Firefox plugin that lets you individually block sites in search results so you reduce scraper garbage SEO sites in your results. PiHole, uBlock, and whatever else that is available to block ads, tracking, etc. “-ai” when searching. Use SearXNG or non-big data search tools when able.

News comes from places like AP or Reuters. Not perfect, but better than half-true at best MSM clickbait.

It sucks. It takes work to enjoy what used to be better a decade ago, but let’s face it it’s been steadily downhill since ‘10 or so. I truly miss the “old” web. Yeah, it had its own problems, but it was far, far better and more egalitarian than this war zone of monetization and manipulation we have today.

It’s hard to get a recipe off the internet without having to hunt for it after a 14 mile long backstory no one on earth cares about. To me, that sums up the internet. It’s damn near dead.

I am getting there.

I’ve been fighting the good fight online and off for decades now, and people have broadly gotten so dense and people’s worst behavior and worst manners are now considered identities and rights, and it’s so massively annoying that I have grown tired of telling people to shut the fuck up about shit that either harms other people or harms themselves.

Now everyone you interact with is not trying to interact with you specifically, but trying to make something they can clip, snip or appeal to an audience with for views, upvotes and attention. They don’t care about exchange, they care about getting attention from their peers.

At least in real-life (whatever that means) people are on their best behavior when you’re larger than them. I really get how some cranky old dudes are always just looking for a fight.

The anonymity of the internet combined with it’s openness and freedom to shit on any conversation and muddy every water and poison any well, has broadly done more harm than good, and I am really weighing the value it has for marginalized people and the like over the overall harm it’s doing TO marginalized people and the like. I am tired of running defense for people who shit on my help, I am tired of having to argue about the most basic bullshit like empathy and civility or choosing to not be civil when required, because there’s always either some 13-year-old who just learned they can be treated like an adult online, or some tweet-farmer in India pretending to be from my country, doing their best to take over the conversation and make it about themselves and their absolutely psychotic world-views or rage-bait.

Broadly, the worst people in the world bring out the worst in others, and that’s far more infectious than good people being good because our species is all about survival, and we fight to survive.

We probably need to take away the freedom honesty. Just like China was forward thinking and employed a social credit score and took away privacy and outside influence from their internet, it sounds horrific but I totally get it. We probably will do that all over the world when this reaches a head. I don’t trust our current government institutions in the west to do it right, but the internet is killing our society, people aren’t having relationships anymore, people aren’t making friends, people just imagine the worst about each other and retreat to private echo chambers and AI chatbots that suck them off.

I always viewed the Internet as a kind of alternate reality growing up. But, then that started to change once “social networks” started taking off and all the normies (as some people refer to it now) started using it. Then it kind of started becoming almost “realer” than IRL, with algos optimized to manipulate people, and sophisticated propaganda campaigns. About 5 years ago, I noticed politicians started using language taken from the “gamergate” discourse. Now, the US admin is transparently trying to control discourse on the largest platforms, and official government institutions are poorly shit-posting.

So, yeah, it’s kinda disheartening how one of the greatest communication tools has turned into a tool for control. Though, in hindsight, I guess I should’ve seen this coming, even from fiction created a century ago. I think I remember some person saying that the Nazi regime wouldn’t have been possible without the invention of the radio.

No, not “off” the internet.

Off the big corporate-driven soulless sites, maybe. Smaller discussion groups/forums, dedicated services, etc. still works. It’s less tedious, less eating your brain.

Basically, going back to internet before central planetary services that feed on everyone being miserable.

Nope. Just about all the good things in my life, arrive through the intertubes. My anime, games, hentai, history videos, they are only really practical because of the internet.

The only pleasure I have outside the internet is food. And honestly, eating for pleasure is far more expensive than a good game. For $30, I can have at least a month of amusement. A good meal? Just a day of contentment.

Maybe I would feel differently if I could spend money without feeling anxiety…but meatbag activities like visiting third places, fills me with fiscal dread. I cannot leave my room often, else I risk poverty finally overtaking me.

No. I might use it less often, but it’s also a more healthy relationship instead of what tech bros wanted.

you inspired me to check out ytmnd. fucking front page has an epstein contest.

i’m not entirely sure if i was on a tour of an active particle accelerator if i wouldn’t take a dive just to try to get us all on a different universe. godsdamned weasels

I believe that life on the internet will reside in private, invite only communities. Public spaces will only get worse and worse.

Lemmy is a salvation spot for me, been an internet denizen since before I was a teen, it has been sad to see it slide into popularity contest/mass consumerism garbage. But I enjoy my Minecraft videos I’ve been watching for over a decade and getting to chat about homelab/Linux stuff as an alternative.

Its not like the real world (in the us at least) is doing any better lmao

I keep a book on my person at all times now. Instead of mindlessly grabbing my phone (internet propaganda portal), I’ll grab the book instead. Been doing it about six months now, I like it a lot. I still havnt finished a book, I jump from one to the other very often, but I’m reading much more.

Its okay to sign off. I had a panic attack two weeks ago, and basically had to sign off for a time. I’m still keeping distance from the internet though. Renewing my love of reading has been a serious positive though.