Yeah i feel like this guy posts a lot of doomer stuff and it isn't as introspective as it could be. i also feel like posting doomer stuff is popular and so he is trying to monetize the doomer mentality. That leads me to kind of think what he says has less value because i just see any kind of monetization scheme like that as a somewhat implicit bias to whatever is being said. you can't be anti-doomer if you make money on your substack talking about doomer ideas. but also, i feel bad for the guy he lost his job that had a nice salary and didn't find a new one. that must suck. But then I wonder, is that exactly what he is trying to capitalize on? And then you must think, is this what the world has become now that everything is commoditized and we are all part of the Attention economy? Is everyone trying to make money on everything and thus no one is really to be believed about anything? That's one reason why i deleted most social media. It all became a grift and none of it had anything to do with being social.
I've been off socials and on forums for 8+ years now for the same reason. I share similar sentiment as Bizzy's sibling reply. I say these things because lately I've been thinking about lot about dead internet theory and how strongly some believe it.
One of the most profound realizations I've had lately is that the perception of the medium of communication itself is a well that can be poisoned with artificial interactions. Major empahsis on perception. The meer presence of artifical can immediately taint real interactions; you don't need a majority to poison the well.
How many spam calls does it take for you to presume spam? How many linkedin autoreply ai comments does it take to presume all comments are ai? How many emails before you immediately presume phishing? How many rage baiting social posts do you need to see before you believe the entire site is composed of synthetic engagement? How many tinder bots do you need to interact with before you feel the entire app is dead? How many autodeny job application responses until you assume the next one is a ghost job posting? How many interactions with greedy people does it take to presume that it's human nature?
This is beautiful. One thing I'd like to add to the list is:
How many AI cheaters do you need to catch on the technical phone screening interview to incorporate a habit of doing IRL CAPTCHA challenges?
It used to be that you wouldn't be aware of what is going on in RU-net [1] or PTT [2] because you simply were not a Russian speaker or you weren't someone living in Taiwan speaking Chinese (yes modern Taiwanese people use a CLI app to login to a BBS in 2025, you can also do this with a web browser but where is the fun in that). So you simply were unaware that they even existed probably or if you do, you are like me and can only kind of speak Russian and get some of the memes, or you simply know about PTT because your Taiwanese friend told you about it.
But now, everything is bifurcated within languages because there is orders of magnitude more content being generated and that content is algorithmically delivered to your eyes and ears based on your interactions with whatever platform you use (e.g., instagram, reddit) and maybe even across multiple platforms. So you likely don't see anything related to Kim Kardashian because you aren't flipping channels anymore through what is essentially "static" content. Instead you are scrolling a feed designed for you and you have never indicated you wanted to keep up with the Kardashians based on what you like and dislike in your feed.
And so I think this bifurcation is combined with this kind of oily, artificial interactions you are talking about, and that makes the internet feel dead. Because the second you have a live experience, like going to a jazz bar without your phone and just hanging out and listening, everything feels so alive and real and amazing.
This all reminds me of these series of commercials by AT&T that were called like, the "You will" commercials or something like that and they were narrated by Tom Selleck [3]. The commercials show all these ways to use technology, that AT&T promised to deliver to you, to connect with both information and each other. Jenna Elfman sees her baby on a video phone, some kid sits in an online lecture and talks to his teacher, some dude sends a fax from the beach. All these things are of course possible today, but most of the time it really doesn't make you feel connected. I want to hold my baby not see it on video phone. I want to interact with my students in class not respond to their comments on some internet forum the university pays for. I want to discuss with my colleagues and build cool stuff together not sit in my office while they hang out at the beach. Everything promised in the AT&T "You will" commercials now exists. But none of it fulfills the promise that AT&T was making, that this would all make us feel more connected.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runet [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PTT_Bulletin_Board_System [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvZ-667CEdo