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+title = "I no longer love The Web"
+author = ["Michał Sapka"]
+date = 2024-01-31T18:54:00+01:00
+categories = ["blog"]
+draft = false
+weight = 2001
+abstract = "I think I finally get why web no longer excites me"
++++
+
+When I first started using The Web, sometime in the late 90s, I fell in love.
+Unfortunately, the love is gone.
+I don't feel inspired, or energized.
+Most often I am anxious whenever a new fad enters the collective mind - be it crypto, NFT, VR or AI.
+
+It wasn't always like that.
+I was deeply into new tech things.
+I devoured magazines and news sites and whenever I found something new, it seemed cool and even though I would not be able to afford it, it still made me feel engaged.
+
+For a long time I've been trying to understand reasons for this change.
+I now think there are two.
+
+
+## Big tech {#big-tech}
+
+When I think of inventions of the past, I think of small groups of people coming out with great ideas.
+Be it Wozniak, Torvalds, Carmack, Knuth, or Stallman.
+They were heroes, geniuses.
+They gave their best and changed the world.
+Nowadays, we've got Musk, Cook, or Zuckerberg on the forefront of the verge.
+
+We've still got folks driven by hunger and ambition.
+But they are powerless against capital.
+
+"We're making something fucking cool" was changed to "we've made a great return of investment".
+When I think of ClosedAI or Apple Vision, I am unable to admire the tech.
+It is amazing, but I couldn't care less.
+Instead, I wonder how will the drive for profit destroy it.
+
+Technologically we are already living in what cyberpunk fiction warned us about.
+What we use, and what defines us, is owned by a few incomprehensibly humongous companies.
+Google and Apple are trying to own the digital world.
+Altman and Zuckerberg are actively racing who will destroy the society faster.
+
+We've allowed Silicon Valley to take the web from us.
+One bite after another, we've given them everything.
+Websites became social media profiles; IRC became Discord; email became gmail.
+
+But we all know that.
+The web is enshifitified beyond recognition.
+But this is not it.
+This alone is not why I fell this way.
+All of this could be easily reverted.
+
+This would break the web, but, by itself wound not be enough for me to loose faith in it.
+
+
+## No longer a safe space {#no-longer-a-safe-space}
+
+The bigger problem is that there is no longer space here for people like me.
+I joined The Web as an escape.
+Most of the people I've met online were (at the very least) socially awkward.
+It was different from now, in the sense that we treated The Internet as a completely separate place.
+It was _our_ safe space.
+We were not who were in the flesh word.
+We were who we _wished_ we were.
+Not for profit, but the heck of it.
+
+In 2024 **everyone** is on The Web.
+The Web is omnipresent, it became intertwined with the offline world.
+You no longer _log in_ as it is no longer a separate entity.
+It's all one and the same.
+
+And with this all the problems of the _offline_ world polluted cyberspace.
+The same people we were avoiding on our IRC channels, are the people who shape what The Web is.
+
+Personally I blame iPhone.
+This is the device that removed the barer.
+"No mater where you go, everyone is connected"[^fn:1].
+The Internet molded into the Flesh World.
+
+The web was taken from us, and with that, it stopped being a truly safe place.
+No longer one can be their true self, as we need to promote our meat suites.
+How many people lost their jobs due to some random joke?
+How many people pretend to be someone, who _others_ want them to be?
+
+Yes, I was a troll and I felt that the web is _my_ control.
+It was my escape, but it is no longer.
+It is controlled by the same crowd who made my younger days much worse than it should be.
+
+
+## Escaping the failed escapism {#escaping-the-failed-escapism}
+
+This is why I find _retro_ so appealing.
+I join small communities which are connected not by superficial, or physical attributes.
+I am not on the Polish web, nor on man web, nor on guys who can't grow beard despite being almost 40 web.
+
+These days I am into Emacs, and BSD.
+Both are classic tech and people into them are into the same things I am into[^fn:2].
+It's easy to find privacy, and cyber-independence oriented folks out there.
+And it is exactly what the web was.
+A community of people who had a lot in common, despite having nothing to do with each other.
+I've met people online who I connected on a deeper level, than to people who I've eactually met.
+
+On the web, I was not surrounded by classmates, or family.
+I was surrounded by _my_ friends.
+And we were playing on _our_ rules.
+
+Those rules are no longer accepted.
+
+It seems that by searching for like-minded communities I inevitably find people who are just much of a relict as I am.
+But we are still on the hostile, soulless Web on today.
+
+I have a son now.
+He is 5.
+20 years ago I would not be able to curb my enthusiasm for showing him around the web, for sharing our passion for cyberspace.
+In 2024, I am afraid of what he will find here because he is so much like me.
+Will he find his own _safe space_?
+
+----
+
+I am publishing this text with huge hesitation.
+I know that most people won't agree, as they may see it as a personal attack.
+It may be read as "not girls allowed".
+It was not the intention.
+
+But maybe I am looking at this wrong?
+Maybe there is silver lining somewhere?
+
+But hey, this is what _blogs_ are for.
+
+[^fn:1]: A quote from "Serial Experiments Lain"
+[^fn:2]: Not to mention that they are extremely cool!
+\ No newline at end of file