The internet used to be a space for exploration, discovery, self-expression, and creativity. People had the freedom to express themselves, an opportunity to learn while doing so. It was fun, it was weird, most of all, it was personal, because it wasn't cluttered with optimised content playing to algorithms.

That changed when big corporations took over. The web became colonized by products and platforms trying to collect and sell your data, restricting your activities by character limits, video time limits, and subscriptions that offer the barest minimum.
They create algorithms to control what we see and interact with, constantly throwing ads in our faces at every given opportunity.

The adverse effects of this are seen in how we interact in real life.

The Effects of Modern Internet

I used to spend hours reading books. Then I fell into the trap of short-form content, and everything changed. Reading felt slow. My attention span shrank. The internet started to feel repetitive. Everyone online was performing and curating themselves for followers, chasing virality, optimizing for reach.

It became hard to tell what was genuine and what was just for show.

Eventually, I stepped back. I kept only the platforms where I could contribute meaningfully, everything else was noise. I didn’t want to scroll through the same reheated content curated to make me feel inadequate or anxious. I wanted more.

The Internet Has Lost Its Fun

The internet has lost its fun; it is now just a curated pile of sh**, polished, optimized, and soulless. There are ads on every platform, the same recycled products are launched every other day. AI is churning out content faster than humans can feel.

But I don’t want to see content that makes me feel like I’m behind in life. I don’t want a feed that’s aesthetically pleasing but emotionally hollow. Real life isn’t perfectly color-graded and neither are most people’s stories.

We learn the algorithm so we can go viral, we optimise our profiles and websites, even our personalities. All for what? Visibility? Virality?

Everyone should be able to enjoy the internet without all the pressure, optimizations, algorithms, bots, ads, and AI that now comes with it.

Everyone should be having fun on the internet.

Rediscovering the Web

The choice to have fun again on the internet led me back to the internet itself. Not the algorithmic feeds, but the open web built by curious people who still care about ideas, creativity, individuality and connections.

I started going down rabbit holes, exploring unwalled gardens hand made with care, personality, and zero SEO hacks. I made my own playground, a space to think, write, and experiment. No likes. No pressure. Just expression.

And I found others doing the same.
✳︎ Small internet spaces.
✳︎ Digital gardens.
✳︎ Personal blogs.
People who were done playing by the rules of big tech. Sometimes a random person like me would find them; sometimes they'd reach out, but they didn't really care. What mattered was being able to express themselves freely without worries about SEO, algorithms, toxicity, or comments from bots.

Making the internet fun again will require us to take a step back, embrace curiosity, discovery, exploration, and creativity. We have to go back to the old way of doing things before the internet became cluttered with a lot of rubbish. We need to build weird little things. Make ugly websites. Share ideas that aren’t optimized for reach.

If you're thinking of creating your own mini space on the internet, Minispace makes it really easy to do so, and if you already have a website, here are 157 pages and ideas for your website to make it yours.

You can also read how I am having fun on the web to learn a thing or two.

See also: Algorithms are a threat to the way we interact with the internet.

References:
[1] arca.so
[2] Not Boring
[3] Glasp
[4] Blog Neocities
[5] Vox
[6] Qmunicatemagazine
[7] Internet is fun