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I don't remember when exactly I wrote this text, probably around a year ago. A few days ago I found it on my work iPad. I added a paragraph or two to finish it and here it is.
Every once in a while there will be a blog post about the death of the web, or that it was in fact never dead, or one about the resurgence of personal websites and blogs, etc. I generally nod a lot when reading those. Sometimes I shake my head. I always start thinking about it all. I think about how the rise of social media changed how we use the internet and the web. But also about why that is, or could be. I am speculating here, I am not a scientist or expert on any of it. I also don't know if I really have a point here. Many of my blog posts are just thoughts put into text, to expand on at some other time. And I think this is one of those.
When we got an internet connection at home - it must have been around the turn of the century, I have no exact year - it was the best day in my life. From that moment on I spent almost my entire free time in front of the PC and online. I surfed the web for information about favourite musicians, I hung out in forums, I made aquaintances, I got interested in making websites and even had one or two.
My friends did not do all that. Internet? What would they want there?
When Facebook was new I made an account, I connected with online friends. I never quite liked it, I didn't know what to do there - we had forums after all, so what was the point of this new thing? So I never used it much. I have since deleted my account.
When Instagram was new and I got my first smartphone I made an account. It was pre-Meta, when it was still about photography. It was beautiful and inspiring. Then it got bad, and worse, and eventually I deleted my account.
I have tried some other social media sites, but nothing stuck.
I miss the days of the forums. I got back into making a website a few years ago. I am on the fedi now.
My friends who weren't into the internet back then? Addicted to Instagram and Facebook, and their Alexas and Chat-GPT or Gemini (and probably some other LLMs). They find it funny when ads pop up on their phones about stuff we just talked about.
I have offered to show them how they can make their phones ad free (by connecting to a DNS resolver). They never took that offer. Their eyes glaze over when I start talking about these things.
I think the people bemoaning the supposed death of the web are those who knew it before the social media silos, the "AI" and ad infestation. Everyone else doesn't even know what we're talking about. And they don't seem to be particularly interested either.
And I think that's the thing: They are not interested in it. They don't care about how it all works. They don't care about how to make websites. They are not interested in reading or writing blogs. They want what many people got to get from magazines: the gossip and the fashion.
That their privacy is at stake? "Well I don't have anything to hide."
Sigh.
But also: As long as they don't seem to have a problem, they don't see the need to change anything. And therefore I can't help them now. I said what I have to say. I'm not their mom and they are adults. Should they come and ask about these things, I will not say "I told you so", I will not scold them. (Future Elena, this is a reminder for you!) I will just try and help them out, and be happy about them having gotten around eventually. Some people take the long way around. We all do with something.
- Elena.
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