Look upon the polished face of the internet and ask yourself: are you having any fun? When you look something up, can you find any decent answer without tacking “+Reddit” onto the end of your query? When was the last time you watched a video uninterrupted by ad breaks? Blame Web 2.0.
While Web 2.0 touts a focus on user-generated content, the fact of the matter is that the only user the new face of the web cares about is the advertiser. I scroll through an article on a website and put up with the kinds of ads that would make me click off ten years ago, assuming the entire site was untrustworthy or virus bait. Every web page is search-engine-optimized to such a degree that they provide no actual information on the thing they’ve been optimized for. Web 2.0 sites are traffic hogs, advertiser farms, pop-up breeders of the highest order designed for only one thing: let’s make these fools click through.
It doesn’t matter if the information is correct or well written. Most of these “help” articles I stumble across while searching are unreadable or patently false — another case of AI inventing citations with flawed information pulled from the annals of the internet. Whenever I find a Web 1.0 site clinging on, managed by a single bug enthusiast in New Jersey, I bookmark it. That site is more trustworthy than anything on Facebook, anything on Instagram or Tiktok. I know the real human person on the other side of that screen is updating that bug identification list because he fucking loves it, not for SEO optimization.
I hate the shiny face of the internet. You probably do too, even if you don’t realize it. As these dopamine farms and chameleon advertisements rot your brain, as we’re forced to censor words like “suicide” and “Palestine” when we talk about difficult or complex topics, you’re spiraling as badly as I am. Web 2.0 keeps you plugged in, whether you like it or not, so you can feed the advertising beast. It’s time to roll the update back.
from the pen of icarus blake 
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