The open web is still there. It's still being built, and thanks to the good services, it's still growing, and it's still accessible and it's still cool. If we can realign these search engines, or maybe there is a future Google competitor (it is not SearchGPT), I think that, I don't know, we could find it again. I think that there could be if these companies were realigned so that they could actually, I don't know, index the Internet. There is plenty of original, human-created content out there. It's just that Google and Being and all of these sites have kind of defaulted on that position of showing us it and we have to search for it through social networks. It's why as an independent journalist it's tough to build a following because all of the algorithms people are built to rely on are broken now.
The new good internet is in our grasp: an internet that has the technological self-determination of the old, good internet, and the greased-skids simplicity of Web 2.0 that let all our normie friends get in on the fun.
Tech bosses want you to think that good UX and enshittification can’t ever be separated. That’s such a self-serving proposition you can spot it from orbit. We know it, 'cause we built the old good internet, and we’ve been fighting a rear-guard action to preserve it for the past two decades.
It’s time to stop playing defense. It's time to go on the offensive. To restore competition, regulation, interop and tech worker power so that we can create the new, good internet we’ll need to fight fascism, the climate emergency, and genocide.