+++
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!