This website was created as part of my Argument Unit Project for my RC 2001 writing seminar.
While it is certainly still possible to find great things online most people would agree that the internet is not always enjoyable to use, and that it's gotten worse in the recent years. Products have gotten more expensive and less functional; our data is harvested more than ever and the content we see is determined by inscrutable algorithms with unclear bias.
But it was not always like this, and it doesn't have to always be like this. A better internet can be built that is controlled more independently and that isn't built only for profit. The many ideas from the internet of the 90's and 00's can be brought back and improved upon in a way that will make the internet much better.
If most people agree that the internet is terrible, why is the internet still the way it is? Cory Doctorow puts forward that many of the companies that manage the internet are simply "too big to care". These companies have insulated themselves from competition and normal market trends to the point that they don't have to worry about public opinion or the useability of their product[2].
The amount of time a user spends on a platform looking at ads has started to be prioritized over anything else at many of these tech companies and it's causing real world harm. Facebook's algorithm for example encourages users to spend more time on the app while also showing them more aggressive and hateful content. Companies like X (formerly Twitter) even pay certain high engagement users which encourages them to argue with and rile up other users[1]. Google has become ingrained in how everyone gets new information but over the years their search algorithm has become worse and worse which affects everyone's access to information.
The internet hasn't always been like this. In the 90's and 00's instead of large social media controlling everything the way most people engaged with the internet was through blogs, forums and personal websites. This internet was a much more decentralized and flexible place. While not perfect and large companies like Microsoft were already trying to dominate, antitrust lawsuits kept any one company from taking over the growing internet[4]. This allowed for enormous amounts of variety on the early internet and companies had to compete very directly for users which made them prioritize user experience.
The old internet can provide a lot of inspiration for how to move forward but it isn't a perfect model to work towards. Many who lived through the internet in the 90's and 00's may be reluctant to go back as it also had a lot of it's own problems. The instability of the early internet is what gave it many of it's benefits, however it also made it so a bad moderator can destroy a good forum or a useful website can disappear without a trace.
Harassment and cyberbullying have always been an issue on the internet, however most of the problems with the early internet have more personal results than the problems with the internet before. When a moderator of a forum suddenly changed for the worse you might leave the forum but that’s the worst of it, but now a change in leadership at a social media site might have changed the outcome of a presidential election. Many people in the 90's and 00's also had an unhealthy relationship with the internet and their social life or self-image but unlike today the sites that people are using were not specifically created to encourage unhealthy behaviors. The internet will never be perfect but the way it exists now makes all those inevitable problems and consequences of those problems worse. With hindsight we can avoid the mistakes of the early internet and learn from it to make the current internet better.
A better version of the internet is possible, one not owned entirely by large corporations that only exists for profit. Many large tech companies such as Google, Apple and Amazon are the target of anti-trust lawsuits which may help to break them up[3]. The internet of the future is being built right now, and you can help determine how it turns out. Use the sites you want the internet to be like, support small or independent sites like Mastodon or Bluesky. This website is hosted through Neocities which is a small platform for making and hosting your own website. Check out some of the other sites on here if you want to see a ton of creativity and if you've ever wanted to make your own website and you know how to write in HTML or are willing to learn Neocities is a great place to check out. If you don't want to quit your social media, try and support small artists and creatives on those sites.
The internet is an amazing technology with so much incredible potential but right now it's owned by companies that don't care about their users and that are actively destroying the internet and the world around them purely for profit. This isn't inevitable and we can make the internet better again, but it'll take a huge shift in how the internet works and how people use the internet.
[1] A. M. Guess et al., “How do social media feed algorithms affect attitudes and behavior in an election campaign?,” Science, vol. 381, no. 6656, pp. 398–404, Jul. 2023, https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abp9364.
[2] C. Doctorow, “Too big to care - Cory Doctorow - Medium,” Medium, Apr. 04, 2024. https://doctorow.medium.com/https-pluralistic-net-2024-04-04-teach-me-how-to-shruggie-kagi-caaa88c221f2.
[3] J. Shapero, “Why Trump’s antitrust agenda could spell trouble for Big Tech,” The Hill, Mar. 20, 2025. https://thehill.com/policy/technology/5203823-why-trumps-antitrust-agenda-could-spell-trouble-for-big-tech/.
[4] S. Lohr, “How Microsoft’s Legal Legacy Shapes the Antitrust Case Against Google,” The New York Times, Nov. 14, 2023. Available: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/14/business/google-antitrust-microsoft-precedent.html