The internet feels monotonous
It’s more about how we interact
With the rise of social media, we all thought it’d become effortless to stay connected and browse the digital world. But little did we all know that quite the opposite of the same would happen.
I was reading this article by Joan Westenberg, where she writes about the downfall of Quora. I enjoyed the read — as it was well-researched and well-versed — but I couldn’t stop myself from reflecting on every piece of reasoning and reality behind it.
I have been a writer and user of Quora for years. There once existed writers for whom I logged into the website. I don’t know about their whereabouts and if they still write on some other platform. I simply don’t. Heck, I have even forgotten the names of a lot of them.
The same happened to Medium once. A lot of talented writers had left the platform. Spending my time on Medium felt like a lost cause. I cancelled my membership and my visits to this site became less often. But gladly, this platform reversed its doom. The management took some bold steps and now Medium feels exactly like it once used to.
Sadly for Quora, there’s no coming back. I still visit the site, and I am disappointed more with every visit. How could they f**k ‘the once favourite place of many’ more?
First, the advertisement became rampant, then the content became monotonous and AI-generated, and then they finally released their own AI bot, Poe. The once lively conversation of the comment box became next to non-existent, and it all started to feel like an echo chamber. A place for low-quality, spammy and scammy content. Quora quite literally killed itself.
I wouldn’t have minded it had this been the case just for Quora. But it isn’t. It’s happening to everything on the Internet at large. All the creative, independent websites succumbed to the Almighty Corporations that promise convenience and monetary benefits. In the name of user-friendly UI/UX, these companies have made the Internet monotonous.
It’s no more fun to log onto the Internet and explore its length and breadth. It has just become going on two or three different websites, with little to no excitement of stumbling into something novel — because it’s simply not designed in that way. Individualism is dead; it’s all about ad revenue and user retention.
Although that makes me extremely sad and question the very purpose of the Internet, I can’t simply log out of it. It’s become an indispensable part of our lives. At the same time, this makes me grateful because places like Medium still exist.
A place where there are no ads, no gimmicks. A place to wander and discover deep knowledge, and a sense of fulfilment. A place where it isn’t always about the next shiny trend, but topics you are passionate about.
The lost internet isn’t coming back anytime soon, thanks to billion dollar Corps. But we can all be a little more ourselves by expressing ourselves the way we want, not how we are supposed to.
