The future of the internet is likely smaller communities, with a focus on curated experiences.
https://www.theverge.com/press-room/617654/internet-community-future-research
The future of the internet is likely smaller communities, with a focus on curated experiences.
https://www.theverge.com/press-room/617654/internet-community-future-research
10 Comments
Submission Statement
“Nearly half of consumers say they’d rather be a part of a community that doesn’t allow AI-generated content.”
I wonder will 2025 be the year AI generated content does switch online behavior? It feels like we’re at a tipping point where it is starting to ruin the experience with Big tech players like Google. I’ve almost given up using Google search, though ironically in favor of AI like DeepSeek, Perplexity & ChatGPT.
The fediverse is having a moment with BlueSky, but far from taking off. This sub-reddit [launched a fediverse clone](https://futurology.today/) a year ago, and it is still quite quiet with just 2,000 or so subscribers.
This survey points to people’s distrust and unhappiness with the online world of 2025. But I’m not so sure there’s something up and coming to replace it just yet.
Much easier to manipulate folks if they aren’t all talking together and keep isolated
I miss enthusiast forums.
I actually really miss seeing a larger collection of stuff I was barely aware of or understood.
Now everyday my internet experience is seeing the same thing again on a loop and I’ll miss out on major world events because it wasn’t prioritized in my algorithm.
France made a mini-sun? Sorry, fella. You googled “hats” last month, so now your top story is HatHat220’s review of hats.
I kind of agree… real content and real connections and real conversations
You mean the future of the Internet will be like how it was in the past?
This is a fantasy. It’d be nice to roll back the clock, but that isn’t going to happen.
“Curation” is a problem if you leave the algorithms do it for you. The guy at Technology Connections had a good term for it: “algorithmic complacency.” Doesn’t matter how small a community is if the algorithm still feeds you something that guarantees a strong emotional response.
That means (internet) dystopia.
It will increasingly reduce the shared experience by society, thereby tearing its fabric more and more.
This will give oligarchs and autocratic movements ever more room to expand their influence and control at the expense of democracy.
the survey is about what people want, or say they want. fine, but why should I expect that that’s what they’ll get?