> I still remember the early internet. It was slow, ugly, unreliable, and full of cranks, a strange world of wheezing dial-up modems, Usenet flamewars, <marquee> tags, and dancing babies.

I remember the 1990s and this guy's "description" is massively biased.

I remember oldschool browser games in the 1990s - AM Mari (Archmage, from a korean company), or even Java Applets such as Dragonquest or whatever was the name. Or Joe Cartoon - may be a bit after 1990s too. Either way, many such things were not a problem here. I never used a dial-modem, for instance, even in the 1990s had fast flat-rate cable connections that was surprisingly cheap. Still kind of is cheap, for the net-value I get from the world wide web, though I agree it has gone down in quality, for many reasons. One reason is ... Google. And other mega-corporations. These try to destroy the internet. Or rather they want to control more of it.

> The scammer once had to find a victim. The platform now finds one, profiles the weakness, optimises the pitch, processes the payment, and recommends the next scam. What was once an aberration has become the norm.

Not incorrect indeed. The private companies here abuse the people. The problem is: what to do about that? Google de-facto controls the internet via its evil adChrome empire. All the ad-money revenue goes through this. It's kind of like a giant mafia system established here. Didn't the free market philosophy once claim that monopolies should be avoided? Why did the USA establish these monopolies?

> Each feeling arrives with something to buy.

Not sure what the guy means. Ublock origin blocks almost all ads. I don't buy anything advertised; I don't even notice it because it does not show up.

Not everyone uses the internet in the same way.

> People doomscroll until they acquire the anxiety that the next influencer will monetise.

Doomscrolling is indeed addictive; I do that on youtube shorts. The shorts are progressively getting worse though and also AI slop spams fake in, which invalidates any time I spend on these too. I usually close the tab after 10 downwards scrolls or so. I am accessing the internet on the desktop though; on smartphones this is probably a more default-y behaviour to swipe.

> The system is dopaminergic in the most banal and mechanical sense. It runs on anticipation, uncertainty, and variable reward.

Ok, I stopped reading there. The guy thinks that humans are simple systems based on biochemistry. I fail to see how I would fit into that scheme at all. And I understand biochemistry. I'd wish he would have spoken more about who ruined the internet, not what the thing today called the internet is about. We need to isolate and counter those who ruined the internet. Google is a huge factor here but not the only one.

I noticed a drastic drop in the quality of YouTube shorts when they removed the dislike button.