It's pretty funny that a post titled "The reason the Internet sucks now" points to the twitverse... 8-)

Ads, and forced conversions.

The Internet used to be mostly hobbyists and 'true believer' types who ran human scale sites and web forums, who managed small communities of the like minded that anyone could view from the side and join or shy away from if they wanted.

Now everything is trying to be a walled garden that locks users and content inside, so both the content and the users are monetized. Mostly by the platforms that try to man in the middle the town square for lack of a good free community commons.

There is nothing wrong with the internet. It is operating as intended, completely out of control like it should be. Big corp has created an easy mode (which is criticised in tweets like this) but the all the interesting stuff is still there. And a lot more of it now too. You’ve always had to actively look for stuff instead of expecting it to come to you.

The internet was Edenic as HTTP.

The advent of HTTPS was a fall from grace, as reality set in. Even if most people are nice enough, a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.

The Edenic experience can be reborn in a walled garden sort of way. But Eden cannot survive real anonymity.

The actual Eternal September challenge is to upconvert the newcomers into your better higher order more agentic societies. Raise up the newcomers.

The digital gardens of the early internet were bound to get paved over as it scaled from millions to billions of users. Being a consumer was easier and simpler, and frankly, far better connected via centralized social-network hub sites.

We can blame outside powers and forced that be. But the path through doesn't really hinge on that. Can we create a powerful culture that has its own will and liberty, that is interested & active in shaping it's way forward? The internet for a while was a magnet for seekers, for people interested in participating in these optimization loops. If we can create the conditions where people can see empowerment, where people can and do connect I'm new and interesting ways, if we make and show off malleable systems we tune and adjust and shape to ourselves, I still believe we can get back on a path of the internet being a way to amplify the better "man the toolmaker" instincts. Opening the door, letting folks peer under the hood & improve, via coding or via other higher order systems, that can culturate & improve people... That's how we respond to the long Eternal September crisis of the digital.

The internet is fine. It's the walled garden websites that runs on the internet that suck.

There is no "better" or "worse" internet. It's just a network.