It is the end of the internet as we know it today. And it's okay

The internet seems to be falling apart.

Not physically, of course. Its infrastructure is intact. There are still fiber optic cables crossing the seas, cell towers spread across cities and data centers full of servers. But the pillars that support the practical web – the platforms that shape our daily online experience – are shaking, starting to show the first signs of collapse.

For starters, nothing seems to work like it used to. Google, once a trusted source of information, is now filled with ads, sidebars, SEO-optimized links, and AI-generated answers.

German researchers recently discovered that it prioritizes low-quality product review pages full of affiliate links and SEO tricks that have nothing to do with the quality of the content. In other words, Google is allowing its platform to be dominated by the worst.

On Amazon, the “digital shelves” are packed with sponsored products and cheap imitations of popular items. Both there and on Google, it is common to need to scroll for a long time before finding something really useful.

The various antitrust lawsuits against these companies show that they have become tolls for advertisers, forcing them to pay for visibility, which ends up harming the quality of services When technology giants make essential services worse, it is consumers who lose out – even if do not need to pay directly for them.

On social media, the situation is even more worrying. Facebook today is basically used to discuss politics with old school friends, receive birthday reminders and find out who has gotten married or is expecting a baby.

The news hardly appears anymore. My feed it’s full of meme pages I never followed, TikToks reposted as Reels, and – of course – bad ads.

OX/Twitter has become a stronghold for far-right speeches, Elon Musk fans and technology “gurus” – not to mention the worst advertisements you can imagine. TikTok, one of the few still fun and spontaneous places on the internet, is at risk of being banned in the USA soon.

Furthermore, the rise of generative AI has brought with it an avalanche of low-quality content, such as poorly made fake images, often created to deceive or irritate. In Facebook groups, for example, it is common to see people admiring “stunning” landscapes without realizing that the details are distorted, or photos of models on Instagram with extra fingers.

The pillars that support the web are shaking, starting to show the first signs of collapse.

The internet, after all, is in the hands of the largest and most powerful companies in the world. We are not talking about a “dead internet”, as some say. It remains alive, however, neglected – ruined by the greed, laziness and indifference of large corporations.

Silicon Valley giants no longer compete or innovate. They prefer to cut costs, increase profits and block competitors to keep consumers dependent and the market under their control. Platforms offer convenience but nothing new, and their usefulness in our digital lives is dwindling.

Perhaps, in 2025, this will all collapse once and for all. But hopefully, people will start to rethink their dependence on digital platforms that treat them with such contempt as simple “users” or consumers. If this really is the end of the internet as we know it, then, honestly, that's okay with me.

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