I recently read an excellent long-form article on enshittification that made me feel like quite the rebel being the person that actively avoids crappy free/cheap stuff. (And yes, I acknowledge my privilege) I can’t stop thinking about it though. I want… I NEED… a simple, succinct version of some of it to send to people to TELL THEM that this is what’s happening.
https://www.wheresyoured.at/never-forgive-them
I want to tell you about “My Internet”.
- I have pretty much not been on Facebook since about 2012. I use it – and Instagram – only where organisations post there and nowhere else and I need that information. I was probably also on Bluesky LONG before you, if you are there, but would rather not be using it.
- I pretty much abandoned Twitter/X now and have not been there really since about November 2022. I pop back occasionally for certain things.
- My main social network is Mastodon. I pay for the service so that the people that run it can do so in a sustainable way.
- I have NEVER had a TikTok account. I’ve rarely use food delivery services. I’ve never taken an Uber – I wouldn’t know how.
- I get most of my “news” through an ancient-but-still-very-useful technology called RSS feeds and I pay to use a feed reader application.
- I watch YouTube, but I use an app called “Play” to carefully curate my own feed of things that I want to watch. And if I watch something outside of what I normally watch I edit my watch history so that it doesn’t annoy me with more of that thing.
- I click “Reject” on cookie pop ups and actively seek out the ways to prevent being tracked as I visit websites. I use an ad blocker.
- Because I reject cookies I get served nonsensical annoying ads that are targetted at generic middle-aged men in the UK.
- I hate ads. I VERY rarely click ads. I identify and avoid them as much as I can.
- As well as paying for social media, I pay for access to online journalism at The Guardian, The New European, and The Verge.
- I use DuckDuckGo as my main search engine. I turn to Google for questions that DuckDuckGo struggles to answer.
- My birthday is not present on social media. You could probably find it. There is ONE person I know from social media who diligently sends me a birthday message every year. (Thank you, Louise!!) Everyone else either knows my birthday or has it in their calendar.
There is probably more.
“But Ross,” I hear you ask “Why is your Internet so expensive and time-consuming and frickin’ weird? It seems like a lot of hard work!”
It’s because I work in tech and I keep on top of tech news, and I know how tech and the businesses behind tech work.
I know that the big businesses are actually hostile to the people that use their services.
The frustrations you have with how things work aren’t your fault. You’re not bad at the Internet. These companies have SO much money. They could make things nice for you if they wanted.
No… what they want is for you to be stuck on their apps and sites. Clicking links that take you to scams and cons and misinformation. Seeing posts and videos that are designed to make you angry or annoyed or freaked out, and read the comments or click the next-video button and stay longer and see more ads and make them more money.
You’ve probably given up, thinking you are too old or not up to it any more. You can’t find that thing that your friend posted last week. Your computer is slow and seems to want you to give your email address to do anything and you have hundreds of passwords that you can’t remember and a zillion marketing emails as a result.
You probably beat yourself up for doom scrolling (or whatever sort of scrolling you do), and buying that stupid thing you saw in a TikTok shop that some influencer said was amazing, but turns out to be complete tat. but it’s not your fault! These apps are designed to make you addicted, to want one more, and another, and another, and buy that shiny thing you’ve never seen before.
You can’t keep up, but you can’t put it down.
It’s causing you stress and anxiety. It’s filling your brain with misinformation. It’s probably costing you money. And it’s highly likely that you’re unaware of it. Or you have dismissed it as “modern life” stuff that everyone has to deal with.
And I feel it too. As much as my ads are random, and my news and social media and videos curated and often paid for so that I see pretty much what I have chosen to see, I can’t curate all of my Internet life.
There are apps that are just super frustrating. My local council’s parking app now want to sell me insurance and charge me 10p for a text message when I just want to pay for parking!!
There are apps that I know are slurping up loads of personal information about me (but Google Maps is just SO useful, isn’t it?)
And there are apps and services that just have good stuff in them and that are worth the cost or hassle (we like Netflix; we use Amazon more than I would like because, while I don’t really like them, they are reliable and stock stuff that’s hard to buy in other places).
But because I know enough about it – and yes, because I can afford both the cost and the time to think and act – I can make informed choices and structure my Internet to be less difficult; less invasive; more “independent” of the big companies.
So now you know some of what I know, and some of the choices I make.
What do we do about this? I don’t know. But I write this to make you aware. To try to get you to think about what you are seeing and experiencing.
Do you actually want to see that video or does someone else want you to see it? Is this an article, or an advert? Can you really make money that way? Is this even real?
Are you choosing to be in a given place on the internet? Or are you being coerced into being there by someone else?
Do you NEED to post to that social network? Or could you message a group of friends instead? If you post it will they even see it? A text message could be more personal and reliable.
Technology has accomplished so many incredible things. But the big companies that run a lot of the internet aren’t in it to serve you. They are in it to serve their shareholders and CEOs.
They make it hard, annoying, addictive and stressful because it makes them money that way. They have targets to grow. To get more people using their services and for longer each day. You are just contributing to those goals. There may be nuggets of usefulness, but most of what they do is exploiting your presence on their system for their own ends.
At the start of 2025, perhaps you can think about being more deliberate about your use of the internet this year. It may be a little more work at times. But maybe it can be less stressful in the long run to use the internet less and/or more thoughtfully.
So here’s my challenge: unsubscribe; delete; message instead of post; only watch/read what you opened the app for; stop scrolling and start curating.
“Your Internet” won’t look like mine, mostly because you’re not a complete digital nerd. But perhaps it can be a bit better for you and a bit less better for exploitative big tech companies!