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This was a rant about the current state of the internet by BEST_MAN_202 on Kiwifarms, a forum best known for harassment and toxicity. OP theorized that the proliferation of smartphones are whats ruining internet space and that social media are monetizing the illiterate by feeding them political content that they otherwise had no interest in.

2007-2009 marked a shift in society. We have the election of Obama in 2008, the iPhone, financial crash, and arguably most important- the maturity of the internet. 2007 was the worst year for the internet and mobile phones and videos becoming more popular opened the floodgates for the lowest common denominator of people being able to access the internet, the internet becoming indistinguishable from everyday life, becoming a part of life and who we are instead of a hobby and it was also the time where companies got a foothole on the internet and tried to regulate it. 2007 was when the internet turned to shit. 1/4 >The wild west and the regulation of the net The early 2000s was the wild west of the internet and life in general. The new century for new life, new beginning, and new dreams. Now, it's feels old and too jaded. Everything feels like a jungle-tron and is infested of drugs, depression, and other sad things. Social media has become a incorporated to the point where you can't say anything without being threaten to be unemployed for what you twitted, demonized or even speak freely. Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, and other big time social media platforms are the newest forums. Any active forum before that is now a ghost town. Prior to 2007, the internet really was the Wild West. The golden age for me was 2001-07, high speed internet and the feeling of endless exploration. Facebook was still “cool” This era marked a shift in the way content was produced. The old internet was exciting because it was new and lawless. Lawmakers had no idea what the internet was in 2000.Fear about hackers stealing your money from the banks, phone companies not understanding what a script/virus that called a 900 number from your computer was. Hell congress use the movie "Hackers" as evidence for trying to regulate the internet? It was used to promote anything and everything , it was full of pirated everything, Napster was insane when it came out. Think of what they charged for CDs, games, and such in 2000. You had no option but to buy it or try to copy one of the 2 songs from a cd off the radio. They kept trying to regulate it but no one in power had any idea what was going on or how to even start regulating the internet. It was around 2005-7 that companies realized the money they could make with it. Things like EBay Amazon and Apple music started to take off. When the companies started making money, they told congress how to regulate the internet to insure their profits. Torrent something nowadays without a vpn and there is a good chance your cable company will cut off your service. 2/4 >Smartphones and the dumbing down of the net Smartphones is one of the reasons why the internet is ruined. Before smartphones, getting on the web was an activity, similar to watching a movie, or playing a video game. You had to put aside your other tasks and sit down in front of a pc and then "surf" the web. And when you finished, you got up, turned off the pc and did something else. People no longer spend hours gazing at a computer screen after work or class; instead, they use their mobile devices to stay online everywhere, all the time. Before it the internet was considered a fringe place for "geeks and nerds". It made the internet mainstream for every single normie on the planet, which ruined the internet in a way. With smartphones its no longer an activity, it's just part of everyone's day to day life, because it's always right there, at all times, at everyone's fingertips. Smartphone apps also made social media easier to access , made videos and online articles more standard as a means of getting news and info, etc. When you can go to the bar and browse the web, or check Twitter on your lunch break (or when you have any downtime at work), and then can check Facebook as you watch a movie or between video game matches, or as you fix your car or watch your son play baseball, it means that it's no longer an activity you have to spend time doing; it has become part of your "lifestyle". Smartphones turned everything into a swipe app zero iq mess. and the fact that a lot of people don't really process - most people on the internet are on phones now. 10x so. Also several interesting studies point to smartphones having at least some effect on cognition. Studies have linked smartphone use with a decreased ability to exert high levels of focus and poorer attention control. 3/4 >Monetising the illiterate population A large portion of the population isn't capable of reading and learning from books. About 20% of people in the USA can't read the instructions on a pill bottle. 20% of American adults have very low to nonliterate literacy level and over 12 Percent of UK citizens are illiterate. They tend to be consumed by spectacles and lack the ability to concentrate on more rational, dispassionate presentations. Youtube, instagram, etc., are monetizing this illiterate portion of the population and feeding them the very political content they've ever really been able to consume. It's similar to the revolution that happened in society when the Bible was first translated into other languages. Messages are corrupted (intentionally and accidentally) and people who have never thought before rush to rash and ill considered worldviews. Social justice groups and similar such groups resemble a religious movement like the puritans or protestants because they are birthed by similar technological phenomena. Plus web search engines now are orders of magnitude worse than around 2005. everything wants to be curated content. you can't type a text string in google and get a match. It's all dumbspeak for dumb dumbs. I honestly doubt it will get better, and it honestly seems like it's getting worse.