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Comment by nbow | Hacker News Reader

I think what I define as the "trash" in this is all the stuff the attention economy wants to boost. It's never stuff that makes you think or teach you something meaningful. All you need to do is spend 5 minutes on TikTok to get what I mean. That is certainly much different from the 90s internet. Engagement is the internet's biggest, heaviest ball and chain.

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I think what happened is that during the 90s/early 00s the internet was too immature to be affected by the garbage/attention economy campaigns that took place in more refined mediums like television for example. The internet was not yet a part of mass media. It was more like a “walled garden” of a different kind in spite of how open it was within the walls.

Watching the internet change may feel different to some people because the relationship that they’ve had with it is more intimate than with their television. What we’re dealing with now is just the intended development of media in society courtesy of The Powers That Be ®.

In hindsight it was inevitable.

I wonder what your perspective would have been if you were living in the time of AT&T's monopolistic dominance. Would have that dominance have seemed inevitable and unchangeable?

I think it's better to not give into the hindsight bias and imagine an internet worth rebuilding. The giants who wrap their tendrils around our time and attention should be ripped to shreds. They don't deserve their power seeing as they use it to pedal division and addiction.

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