Live, log off, love
The internet is slowly failing for me, personally, and I kind of love it.
This began on several fronts at once, it seemed. A major newspaper changed some code on their paywall and now I can’t load anything, not even with my ad blockers. A derelict right-wing social network changed its name and threw up a login wall, causing any content pasted from there to render as the name only, demanding a login. A less derelict social network set up a login wall and then banned my MAC address. People joined a better social network and bounced for whatever reason. All over the web, people realized that I have content blockers installed, correctly, and are not allowing me to read their stuff.
Of course, search has been bad for a long time, the “front page of the internet” is going through an existential nightmare, and without exception all high-quality internet communities have been driven into deeply private structure. You know this. It is here.
So broadly, the internet has mostly stopped working, for most things the internet is actually good for. I suppose I can still send you text, thankfully, although at least one of you bounced after encountering too many issues with deliverability. And I can run my consultancy for at least a little while, until Google turns off all of the tools that I formerly used to run my consultancy. I can still buy stuff – the internet really wants me to buy stuff. Wikipedia is around, despite everything, as is the Internet Archive. But it’s been a while since I’ve read a good thing and been able to save it for later and paste it to other people to get their comment on it, and I view that metric as a powerful bellwether of what the internet is for.
The internet’s sudden usability collapse reflects, of course, the deep psychospiritual impoverishment that the tech industry is currently experiencing, which is neither of our responsibility to address or solve. We can only witness and react.
And ultimately, I don’t really need the internet. Searching for stuff is nice, and buying stuff is convenient, but gosh, I live in a big city and I can do stuff my own ding dang self. I made brunch for a few close people this past Sunday and when the topic of social media came up, voices descended to a low whisper, people talking about addiction and recovery and gratitude that they are not psychically hijacked by the whole thing.
In response, I have been doing exactly what the internet does not want me to do, and I have been not using it. I spent four hours in my garden on Saturday, and then I made a meal for a friend. I close my laptop and play with my dog. I listen to records, one whole album at a time, while reading books and journaling. I go to yoga class and drop into myself. I go to parks and stare at plants. I use my devices almost exclusively as a way of planning conscious in-person gathering, like someone does in Chicago during the summer. And I feel free.