Whatever Happened To The Internet Dream?

Part 1: Bored of the Internet
Part 2: The Death of Politics and Religion
Part 3: The Decline of Movies and TV
Part 4: Trapped in an Andrew Niccol Film
Part 5: The Tech Apocalypses
Part 6: Internet Memes are Destroying Civilization

Part 7: The Dream Is Dead!

I’ve been working on various different aspects of the Internet for 20 years now. I have worked on computers, web servers, domain name servers, email servers, search engines, cloud servers, ISPs, home routers, IP phones, and cell phones.  The ever changing nature of the internet has led to a few layoffs and constantly shifting roles.

This year the legitimate servicing company I worked for started reducing our hours, and then introduced a new “sales” component.  The legitimate company turned into a side hustle company, and I got out.

So I got a new job for the local division of a “silicon valley start up”.  All the horror stories I have heard about working for companies like this were true.  It was a high stress environment that required significant training, and they were paying about a third of the wages we should be getting for the kind of work they wanted us to do.  Silicon Valley culture is toxic, misogynistic, and it was clear the owners were just trying to build the company so they could sell it.  In other words, they didn’t care.  I got out again.

So for the first time in two decades, I work for a company that has nothing to do with the internet.  It’s actually nice!

But it got me thinking.  The internet was supposed to change the world for the better, but the golden age of the internet is pretty much over. Every corner of the internet has been taken over by governments, megacorporations, and side hustles.  Is there any good left on the internet?

I’ve been thinking about the “state of the internet” recently, especially in regards to events globally and personally over the last few years. Some conclusions:

1. The “wild west” era of the internet is pretty much dead. Corporations have taken over the majority of it. All the cool stuff is now owned by established corporations.

I recently needed to change my DNS settings, as my current settings weren’t cutting it. I decided to go back to Open DNS, the only truly independent DNS servers on the internet — until they sold out to Cisco Systems.

2. The “Silicon Valley Start-up” is dead. Funding resources that used to be available to entrepreneurs with good ideas and a business model have dried up. There won’t be any more new internet billionaires anytime soon.

3. There is still money to be made in the “gig economy” (Uber, Lyft, Airbnb, You Tube, Patreon, Gofundme, etc.) but it is harder and carries higher risk than it used to. Basically, if you are not already making good “gig economy” money, you probably never will until worker protections and benefits are common place for contract workers.

4. The “free” areas of the internet are shrinking and getting harder to access. Worse the advertising models that kept those areas free are not paying enough to keep them free.  More and more websites with actual good content are putting up pay walls.

Paywalls are the bane of many popular websites like Reddit which relies on commenting and sharing news and content from other sites.  Paywalls are blocking Reddit users from seeing the content they need to comment on, resulting in fewer meaningful posts.

When you rely on material from other sources, and those sources block you, you die like Fry’s Electronics.

5. Social media is in sharp decline across the board as these sites grow more toxic and advertiser dominated. Celebrities have learned to make money shilling their fame, and that is what dominates twitter and Instagram these days.

6. Toxicity in social media has leaked into multiplayer gaming where MMORPGs, Open PvP warfare games, and 3D Virtual Worlds that depend on social interaction for content and player retention are in sharp decline.

7. It almost doesn’t matter if “net neutrality” becomes the law again or not. It does not seem to serve a purpose anymore.  It was supposed to create a level playing field of customer access that both big companies and small companies can access, but too many other road blocks have been raised that the ones “net neutrality” was supposed to undo don’t really matter.

And yet there may be hope…

While digging through my archived posts I found one written in 2010 called “What tech will be gone by the next decade?” and made some predictions.  I won’t bore you with a score card ( I was right about DVD’s, Satellite TV, and incadescent bulbs, but those were easy calls), but what interested me more were the predictions I got wrong.

The e-book revolution was supposed to change reading the same way that ipod changed listening to music.  It was supposed to be the death knell of the bookstore and the library.  And yet it didn’t. E-books account for only 20% of book sales.  That is where it has been for the last few years and holding steady.  Bookstores have turned a corner and may actually be making a comeback.  Libraries are growing in popularity as well supplanting shopping malls as the cool place to hang out.

Theaters are still surprisingly popular. Adding reclining seating, reserved seats, and alcoholic beverages has boosted the movie theater experience enough to keep people going.

To me, this all feels like a societal counter revolution.  The internet has caused so much change to society that we are collectively trying to rescue some elements of pre-internet society from the damaging effects of the internet.

This is all good.

The best and worst elements of the internet

If you ask me what the greatest thing about the internet is, I’d tell you it is how the internet brings together like minded individuals.  I’m an aromantic.  I didn’t know this until I learned what an aromantic was.  Only 1% of the population is aromantic.  I’m also a nerd with an INTP personality.  Supposedly only 3% of the population is INTP.  I make indie visual novels using Poser.  The number of others that do is really small.  I have found supportive communities on each aspect of my life.  Learning I’m not alone in my weird hobbies and personality traits has brought a lot of joy to my life.  I’m pretty sure this has helped millions, maybe even billions of others as well.

If you ask me what is the worst thing about the internet is, I’d tell you it is how the internet brings together like minded individuals.  The sheer toxicity of society today both on and off the internet is largely due to toxic people egging each other on.  The “Boaty McBoatface” mentality of the internet is responsible for the rise of racism, sexism, nationalism, fascism, and religious demagoguery throughout the world that is threatening the survival of the entire planet.  Conspiracy theorist run rampant spreading lies and finding people that believe them and creating social movements based on lies.  Governments, political parties, and corporations are using social engineering techniques to control the uninformed masses.  Shutting down social media to stop these trends would do the world a lot of good.

What do we do when the best and worst elements of the internet are the same damn thing?

Another brick in the wall

The main lesson to be found in the movie Joker is this:  Society is to blame for the problems of society.

Yeah, I thought it was a pretty lame theme as well.

My point is, the Internet is just another social institution that got really popular and then disappointed us, and now it is losing its influence.  In the past century, motion pictures, then radio, then TV, then video game consoles, then the Internet all dominated the public consciousness as we distracted ourselves from existence.

Is it losing it’s ability to influence us?  Yes!  Will it disappear?  Only the same way motion pictures, radio, TV, and video game consoles have disappeared (they haven’t).

The average internet user probably cycles between only 4 or 5 web sites daily. There are probably a dozen that they visit occasionally, and maybe 50 that they have bookmarked to check in on from time to time when they are bored.  The other billion websites they never visit.  These numbers are probably mirrored with internet apps.

The internet is meaning less and less to us. It seems we have all moved on to the next distraction:  Streaming services.

Coming soon!  My new blog series: Whatever Happened To The Streaming Service Dream?

This month the most popular unfiltered social media site Tumblr has banned porn, nudity and any other sexual content starting December 17th 2018.

Of course sites have every right to ban whatever they want, I’m not that upset about the ban itself, although it likely means I’ll be off the platform in the future.

I maintained a couple of pages on tumblr including Rachel Spahr’s modeling portfolio mentioned in Something’s In The Air,  a few of the pics have already flagged for nudity.

Even though the nudity doesn’t involve actual human nudity, the new Tumblr Community Guidelines now include this line: —this includes content that is so photorealistic that it could be mistaken for featuring real-life humans (nice try, though). 

The thing that upsets me is how this came about.  Despite there always being rules against it, the site was used by criminals to share very illegal child porn. Tumblr shut it down as soon as it was reported, but the incident caused Apple to remove Tumblr’s app from their app store.  That was enough to trigger the ban.

In other words, one company forced another to change its rules. That to me is a bad sign for the future of the internet.  No it is not the first time something like this has happened, but it is the biggest case I can remember, and likely to be the first of many.

Corporations influence on the internet

Tumblr is not some indie site. It was when it began, but then they sold out to Yahoo, who in turn sold out to AOL, who in turn sold out to Verizon.  Such is the nature of the internet right now.

My last post on the status of the internet was primarily about government policies negative effects on the internet, but the status of the internet is also heavily affected by corporate interests.

Websites need advertisers to generate revenue, and advertisers are getting picky about the websites they are willing to advertise on.  One of the biggest losers of this is You Tube.  Once a great place for smart and talented people to make money, it is not that way anymore.  One such star Comic Book Girl 19 breaks it down like this:

Corporations don’t like to advertise on controversial parts of the internet. The good news is that far right wing websites are losing a lot of money as advertisers pull away.  The bad news is that LGBT friendly websites like You Tube and Tumblr are forced to become less friendly to that community as well.

Targeted Advertising is crap!

Another thing I pointed out last time is that “targeted advertising” which is the buzzword of Google and Facebook for the last two decades is proving to not be as effective as promised.  I really think it is a scam like blockchain and bitcoin.

I visit a lot of tech sites, and as a result, tech ads follow me around.  I also visit a lot of entertainment sites, and what shows up? Tech ads.  When I go back to the tech sites, I get a bunch of entertainment ads.  To Google I ask, “How is this more effective?”  To advertisers I ask, “How is this more bang for your buck?”

It seems to me a much better way to “target advertise” is to advertise on sites that potential customers are likely to go.  That way there is no incentive for Google, Facebook, and other associated scammers to collect personal information.

VC Money is out! Consolidation is in!

For the last decade or so, the main source of income from the internet came from investors looking to get in on the next big thing.  It seems that VC money is drying up, thanks to too many lost investments, and that means you have to make money by selling a service, selling advertising, or getting bought out.

The biggest trend right now is that internet media sites are consolidating, or closing their doors.  The ones most successful at it, like Vox, Vice, and Buzzfeed are moving into multimedia and offline content.  The less successful ones are closing their doors and putting up “for sale” signs.

The overall health of the internet: Bad!

While researching this page I came across a report by Mozilla about the health of the internet. Between personal data collection, bots, “fake news”, fraud and abuse online, and a number of other factors, it looks pretty bad.

Click here for the full report.

What can be done about it? That’s a whole other post for later.

The battle for Net-Neutrality, which despite of what you heard is still ongoing, seems to have changed government regulators attitudes towards the internet on what they can and cannot regulate and censor.

I knew this is where it would go.  As soon as you let Government change how the internet works, you open the doors to all sorts of shenanigans.  All those “Libertarians” who were saying that “Net Neutrality is government interference” even though I have been saying it is the exact opposite for years, well they can just go fuck off, because their ignorance is guaranteeing government interference.

The wild west days of making money off the internet are very much numbered now.  The internet as it looks today will likely be a distant memory within 10 years, even if we somehow get Net Neutrality back.  Big changes are coming, some I might even agree with, but their ultimate effects are unknown.

How Europe’s New Privacy Rule is Reshaping The Internet

Let’s start with one I kind of agree with.  With all the concerns over Facebook sharing data with political data miners Cambridge Analytica with ties to Russia, it seems something needs to be done on the privacy front.  The EU has new rather tough new laws regarding what web sites are allowed to gather about you.  The penalties are big enough that even major companies are changing their policy.

Have you been noticing a lot of “This site uses cookies” pop ups lately? This EU regulation is why.  Also, data collection websites like Google and Facebook have to be open about what data they collect on you, and you have the right to opt out.

Because much of the internet traffic flows through Europe, the EU’s regulations affect everybody, unless you are an American ISP collecting data about your own customers, which the GOP forced through last year.

Meanwhile in America, Law Enforcement Can Access All your Data Just By Asking

Slipped into the must pass budget was the CLOUD Act.  A piece of legislation actually supported by data collection companies, because it basically allows them to wash their hands of the whole issue:

As we wrote before, the CLOUD Act is a far-reaching, privacy-upending piece of legislation that will:

• Enable foreign police to collect and wiretap people’s communications from U.S. companies, without obtaining a U.S. warrant.
• Allow foreign nations to demand personal data stored in the United States, without prior review by a judge.
• Allow the U.S. president to enter “executive agreements” that empower police in foreign nations that have weaker privacy laws than the United States to seize data in the United States while ignoring U.S. privacy laws.
• Allow foreign police to collect someone’s data without notifying them about it.
• Empower U.S. police to grab any data, regardless if it’s a U.S. person’s or not, no matter where it is stored.

And, as we wrote before, this is how the CLOUD Act could work in practice:

London investigators want the private Slack messages of a Londoner they suspect of bank fraud. The London police could go directly to Slack, a U.S. company, to request and collect those messages. The London police would not necessarily need prior judicial review for this request. The London police would not be required to notify U.S. law enforcement about this request. The London police would not need a probable cause warrant for this collection.

Predictably, in this request, the London police might also collect Slack messages written by U.S. persons communicating with the Londoner suspected of bank fraud. Those messages could be read, stored, and potentially shared, all without the U.S. person knowing about it. Those messages, if shared with U.S. law enforcement, could be used to criminally charge the U.S. person in a U.S. court, even though a warrant was never issued.

This basically allows police states to trace web activity of individuals all over the world. Bottom line, as I wrote a year ago, is you will need to be even more vigilant with your online privacy than ever before!

The Horribly Misguided War on Internet Porn

Last year, the Tory Government of the UK attempted to regulate and censor the internet.  Then they had an election which effectively killed those plans (so far).  Meanwhile, in the US, Congress passed legislation that may be more draconian than UK’s attempt.

The U.S. Senate just voted 97-2 to pass the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA, H.R. 1865), a bill that silences online speech by forcing Internet platforms to censor their users. As lobbyists and members of Congress applaud themselves for enacting a law tackling the problem of trafficking, let’s be clear: Congress just made trafficking victims less safe, not more.

Lately, there has been a lot of action to stop sex trafficking.  Sex trafficking is basically organized forced rape of its victims, and unfortunately it is rather prevalent around the world.  Everyone should be against sex trafficking.

Here is the cynical problems with this approach:  1. Somehow conservative politicians equate escort services with sex trafficking.  “Escorts” are in the profession by choice, can choose their clients, and reserve the right to say no.  They are not sex traffickers, no are they part of the sex trafficking industry, but they are low hanging fruit that lawmakers can exploit to say they are doing something about it.  This reduces resources to investigate and stop the real sex trafficking industry which has many real victims including children.

Problem #2: This is a back handed way to implement SOPA.  SOPA in case you don’t remember was a mandate for websites to self police themselves. It would force websites to closely monitor all posts for copyright violations, and other illegal content. It would have effectively closed down major websites that allow user created content unless they hired thousands of people to monitor all content that goes on the site.  FOSTA forces websites to self monitor for sex trafficking.  Because of this Craigslist was forced to shut down the personals section of its website.  No big loss there as far as I am concerned.

The problem is there are legitimate websites used by escorts to safely find clients that are likely to be affected and shut down, this will drive web traffic of this nature further underground and make the sex trafficking problem even worse.

But a bigger fear is that law enforcement will use FOSTA as a way to regulate web traffic of all sorts, and once government’s foot is in the door on this, the next step is to break down the door.  How long before government goes after all porn in the name of stopping sex trafficking?

UPDATE: FOSTA results in raid of Backpage.com. To quote from the story:

Some in the sex worker industry say that removing Backpage from the Internet takes away a safe mechanism for screening clients and that the ads will simply move to sites outside the country or to social media.

There are already governments like the state of Rhode Island proposing taxes on internet porn.  How such legislation could possibly be enforced is troubling. There is no porn on/off switch on the internet.  There exist VPN services designed to block content so that concerned parents can think their kids are safe online, but making everyone use these unless they pay a $20 fee with a picture ID and a written statement saying you want to watch porn, is downright fascist.

Would you be willing to pay a $20 fee and register yourself as a porn watcher just so you can go to legitimate websites that are not “kid friendly”?  Such decisions are likely in our future.

The House of Cards that is Online Advertising

Combining Governments new concern for online privacy with the fiasco that targeted advertising created in 2016 with the Brexit vote in the UK and the Trump election in the US, “targeted advertising” via data collection is getting a bad reputation.

I have been thinking for years that companies that advertise online probably are not getting as much out of it as they think.  Especially those clickbait sites that steal material from other sites, slightly rewrite it to avoid copyright, post it online saturated with ads, then buy ads on Facebook to get people to come to their ad saturated sites, and somehow turn a profit.

Google and Facebook are two of the biggest companies in the world, and they pretty much make all their money on supposedly “targeted advertising”.  Companies looking to sell stuff buy ads on these platforms in hopes that they will be seen by people likely to be interested in their products.  Is the advertising working? Obviously it is working at least a little bit, or nobody would be making any money.

Here’s the problem: it’s not working as well as it used to.

Popular websites struggling

Sites that depend on online advertising for revenue are not doing as well as they used to. Even major sites like Twitter, Snapchat, Tumblr, and Reddit seem to have low profit margins if they make a profit at all.  They try to bolster those profits by adding more ads to their sites which of course just annoys readers.

One of my favorite sites was Cracked.com which I visited frequently mostly for their entertaining videos.  On December 6, 2017 Cracked.com’s parent company laid off all the people responsible for those videos. What is left of the site is a skeleton crew that is likely going to turn into another clickbait site.

You Tube Channels are struggling

Making money on You Tube got really big when word got out that some You Tube stars were making millions annually in ad revenue from the site.  This of course started a flood until newcomers were finding out that making original content videos was hard and only the most popular were making the big bucks.

To make matters worse, advertisers on You Tube were upset to learn their ads were appearing on You Tube channels with controversial content. So You Tube started flagging channels with such content. The controversy started with racist and sexist alt-right hate channels, but You Tube also flagged channels that support the LGBT community.

Some of these channels launched Patreon pages which seeks financial help from viewers in the form of small monthly donations. This has helped small operators make money lost on declining advertising revenue.  There was a policy change on Patreon last December that threatened that as a source of revenue, but fortunately it got reversed.  Still it is a lesson that trying to make a living online is a very insecure and unreliable source of income.

Paywalls and More Paywalls

If you are like me, you are going through your facebook feed and reddit news clicking on links that look interesting and finding more and more that they are blocked by paywalls.  With the decline of online advertising, the only way for news sites to stay profitable is get subscribers.

We internet patrons are already paying a lot for our internet connection. How many web sites and Patreons and Twitch channels can we subscribe to realistically on top of that?

The internet has a financing problem, and I’d says we are one recession away from losing thousands of websites and content creators.

The Future looks like Amazon.com

If regulation shuts down social media sites, and declining advertising and subscribers shuts down news sites, we are probably looking at a future internet that looks like Amazon.com.

A board member of Google pretty much said as much in an interview:

Google has competitors in all of tech’s largest companies, but the one former CEO Eric Schmidt is watching the most is Amazon.

“Many people think our main competition is Bing or Yahoo,” he said during a visit to a Native Instruments, software and hardware company in Berlin. “But, really, our biggest search competitor is Amazon. People don’t think of Amazon as search, but if you are looking for something to buy, you are more often than not looking for it on Amazon.”

Schmidt noted that people are looking for a different kind of answers on Amazon’s site through the slew of reviews and product pages, but it’s still about getting information.

Is that where the internet is headed? Who knows, the future is very difficult to predict, but don’t be surprised if your favorite web sites disappear or radically change in the months ahead.