Something insidious has been happening over the last few decades. Not in secret, so much, but slow enough to go unnoticed: The Internet has turned into a steaming pile of garbage.

Enshittification is rampant on every platform, degrading the experience of almost every web-app, site, and service.

Twitter has turned into X, and in my view, a platform that was somewhat hostile and crawling with bad behavior is now an utterly toxic (and useless) pile of horse turds.

Additionally, when I signed up for Instagram 15 years ago, it was a place to share photos with real people. It was creative and social. And, dare I say, fun. Now, it is a digital succubus that endeavors not to help me socialize and see the creativity of others, but to capture as much of my attention as humanly possible (so it can serve me ads—while simultaneously rotting my brain and, quite literally, making me dumber). Or stupider. Or more dumb. However you say it. See? It worked.

For the most part, I left social media quite a few years ago. The accounts are still there, but I try to avoid them at all costs.

I wish that was the worst of it. I wish I could say that just leaving social media was sufficient to avoid being constantly harassed or annoyed on the Internet. But, doing almost anything online now goes something like this:

I visit a site because I need to accomplish something. I am halted first by an utterly confusing message about my cookies and my privacy. And, I am left reading through legalese that I don’t understand, to make a selection I don’t care about, regarding a use of data that is utterly opaque to me. This is all presented in a completely non-standard way, and I’m mad about it because this doesn’t seem worth my time to actually parse. So, I just click one of the options… because I was trying to do something.

Then I finally get around to doing the thing I came there to do, making 30 seconds of progress before I am once again blocked. A notification appears to tell me that I need an account. I sign up for the account.

Wait, did I already do this? Did I use my email before? Facebook or Google authentication? Now I have to sign into my password manager to check. I waste 3 minutes figuring that out.

I try to log in.

The account requires 2-factor authentication. Ugh, ok. I deal with that.

I log in. Again.

Pop-up “Sign up for our newsletter?”

F**k this.

And I leave.

I don’t even have to get into AI slop and the destructive move from followers to algorithms. I think you get the point.

I Probably Sound Like an Old Man

I’m in my 40s. So, if you are younger than me, you might not know that it wasn’t always like this. There was a time when the Internet was not completely commoditized, industrialized, and capitalized.

It was a place where actual people, individuals, went to share things. It wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t completely safe. And it was far from ideal. But it was real, it was authentic, and it was fun.

Actually, it still is. You just have to work at it a little more now.

The “World Wide Web” Was Awesome

Last week, in a moment of extreme irony, YouTube’s algorithm served me this video about the Indie Web. I knew within a minute or two that I had found something special, something I wanted to be a part of. Even a small part.

The Internet used to be more commonly referred to as the “World Wide Web”. It was, at its basic level, an interconnected set of digital locations. What made it usable wasn’t a venture-funded app or a platform where you could become a “partner”. The “web” or connection part came from links.

If you liked something or something was relevant or interesting, you linked to it. And other people linked to things. The whole digital world was a web—of links.

No one was recommending anything to you. No singular powerful entity was steering you toward something or away from something. You were an explorer. You found one door into the web through your favorite blog, page, or forum, and you explored from there. Clicking links.

You might have ended up somewhere completely irrelevant. You might have gotten bored because none of them were interesting. But most of the time, you found something cool, maybe by someone compelling in a corner of the world that you would never have otherwise seen.

It was decentralized. It was creative. And a lot of it was made by people. Not companies and robots. And, it was pretty cool.

And, it’s not gone.

The Indie Web

For the last week, I have been spending my evenings “browsing the Internet”. Not scrolling through TikTok (actually, I have never done that). Not deleting hostile YouTube comments or feeling bad about my life because I’m not married to a beautiful Instagram model.

I am surfing the web. Reading about how an engineer from Iceland made a image to ASCII art rendering program. I’m looking at a unique web design from a college student in Japan—somewhere. I’m learning what it’s like to lose power during a cold winter in Lithuania. I’m going through a series of posts from someone who is dealing with chronic illness. I have no idea what I am going to find or read next.

It’s relaxing. It’s inspiring. It’s interesting. It’s creative. And, I love it.

You can surf the Indie Web too! I will help you get started, right now.

First, go get a cup of tea or a glass of wine or some… lemon-water or whatever.

Neocities - Start here. Kinda the hub of this revival movement. Mostly HTML pages.

Here are a few random web-rings I found with lots of links. I haven’t been to most of them, but it’s a good place to start.

Melon Land Surf Club

Hotline Webring

There are thousdans of lists like this. I just happen to stumble upon these. Explore, and I’m sure you will find more.

Doing My Part

Inspired by these experiences, I am changing this blog to be more unique. To be my own voice again, instead of just articles that will get search traffic. I am slowly re-designing it to be fun and less sterile. And, I will, over time, add more and more links to things and people that I think are interesting. I have never had analytics and pop-ups on this site because I hate that crap, so no need to fix that. But I can do more. So, I will.

Finally, I would like to encourage you to opt out of the enshittified Internet. If the platform sucks, the people are annoying, and the experience makes you feel less human, just leave. It’s the strongest voice you have. Take your attention elsewhere. There are hundreds of thousands of wonderful tiny places for you to enjoy on the web.

Go find them.