commodification of the internet (and how to escape it)
sometimes the internet feels so bleak to me. yes, it provides avenues to connect and communicate, but it's recently just been decaying into a capitalist hellspiral. how am i supposed to have faith that "people over profit" is a mentality that will eventually prevail when everything on youtube is, like, hyper-optimised for clicks and retention and analytics. and has 4 ads and 2 sponsors. i’m not even joking, something i’ve noticed recently is that, on the mobile youtube app, when you PAUSE A VIDEO a sidebar ad will pop up??? that is VILE. i literally have half an essay's worth of thoughts on youtube alone to write.
or, like, you can't search anything anymore without the top 5 pages/articles that come up being ai generated slop. wtf is with that? i want to read things that are reliable and true, and WRITTEN BY A HUMAN, not random ai shit that people fill their websites with for the ad revenue money-and it IS for the money. you can tell. and OH MY GOD, THE RAGEBAIT. that shit pisses me off so much. the internet has become so money-fuelled that people intentionally mar their digital footprint by posting stuff (especially on tiktok/video platforms) that is either really gross or just really anger inducing (as "satire") to farm engagement, comments, etc that turn into money from ad revenue or creator programs. i think i'm pretty good at identifying it (most of the time), but because i'm autistic, and i tend to believe people when it's feasible because i don't really assume people are lying, i can guarantee i've fallen for it multiple times. i think the reason it pisses me off so much is that they are making money off of YOU as the viewer. These people on the internet profit from deliberately provoking YOU. By engaging with it, you are directly earning capital for people.
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i miss when the internet was actually for people (although to be fair, i was barely alive/on the internet when it was). i miss people having fun for the sake of having fun.
the only thing I really know about that i can recommend is using Firefox. it is unironically a much better and safer browser than any other. i don't care what you say, it is one of the best ways to protect yourself from constant advertisements and data tracking. it is free to download firefox, and there is a FREE extension called uBlock Origin, which is a widespread content blocker. this shit automatically blocks ads, trackers, popups, miners, everything. and you can add more things to block, or customize what you do and don't want to see. like it is so freeing to be able to use the internet without all of the constant capitalism noise (well, i mean, everything is capitalism noise bc we live under capitalism, but without all of the constant in-your-face "PLEASE BUY OUR SHITTY PRODUCT YOU DON'T NEED THAT SUPPORTS CHILD LABOUR!!"). in the words of tumblr user alivelmall, "nowadays Chrome is just a data harvester designed to show hyper targeted ads - so even if Firefox ain’t for you, it’s still worth ditching Google for a different browser". but also, pretty much all browsers that aren't Firefox are based on Chromium (essentially meaning they're also google tracking you). if you want any control over your own experience of the internet, firefox is how you do it. (not to plug mozilla or anything lol, but i genuinely am so thankful for it).
you can download firefox here, ublock origin here, and hereis a very useful tumblr post with info on some other helpful extensions.