I remember the shared energy/crowds/community feeling of shopping during the holiday season.

I remember everyone singing along to songs.

I remember when products where safe. Amazon sell fuses that don't work. Food that is doctored. Fake versions of everything. AI generated books.

I remember when businesses were small enough we could and would boycott one that forced them employees to piss in bottles because 'efficiency'.

I remember a ton of times Google maps just fed me straight bullshit.

I remember when CVs weren't automatically rejected based on bullshit criteria/AI decisions without ever being looked at by a human being.

I remember a thousand percent different/more authentic nerding out/hacking community than todays 'embraced' nerd/geek culture.

All of these tools have a horrible side, and because of scale there's not much we can do about it (how do you verify what Google tells you isn't going to get you killed? https://www.sfgate.com/national-parks/article/google-map-res...

and the horrible side keeps growing, while the improvement seems to have mostly happened over a decade ago at this point, with techno optimism beaten out of most of us since then by the very companies that improved our lives a decade ago.