You're describing the 2010s era of algorithmic social media, I think OP is referring to the earlier internet
While social media may have ruined the internet, think of that as more of hitting the ground after falling off a cliff. It was the constant connection that really started changing everything. Instead of getting on the internet and disconnecting from the internet, we were always on. The algorithm that filled this new environment was inevitable.
Simply put there is no route back to those early days.
Sure there is. Make another internet and keep the normies and capitalists away from it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49541705
This is no different than saying make a huge pitre dish and ensure no mold ever lands on it and grows. Aka: a completely unrealistic view on how systems work.
And if contamination is inevitable, just burn down the lab and start the experiment again elsewhere.
If I had any reason to I could pump out thousands of Gemini slop sites and turn the ratio of real sites to slop up to 1 to a million. Then publish article after article on how all Gemini is is junk and for the most part it will be true.
Yeah but you don't. It literally isn't worth the effort. We're talking about a few thousand people at most, less than the userbase of HN. And if you did, those sites would just go ignored. And no one would read those articles because no one outside of geminispace actually cares about geminispace. It would be like trying to kill a housefly with a cannon.
Even if we were talking about the fediverse, which provides a much bigger target, people just wouldn't federate with the slop. The decentralized architecture guarantees that the community splits and fractures as it grows, so you can have greater inclusivity across the board, but exclusivity within instances. Go ahead and pump out thousands of instances. No one has to care. So far self-limiting and opt-in architectures do work to hold back the tide.