To be fair the heyday of unshit search was driven by mostly-consensual scraping.
Today there are far too many people scraping stuff that isn't intended to be scraped, for profit, and doing it in a heavy-handed way that actually does have a negative and continuous effect on the victim's capacity.
Everyone from AI services too lazy or otherwise unwilling to cache to companies exfiltrating some kind of data for their own commercial purposes.
With peering bandwidth being freely distributed to ISPs and consumers being fed media and subsidised services up until their necks makes the counter argument smell of narrative control rather than technical or financial constraints
But as I’m growing older I’m learning that the tech industry is mostly politically driven and relies on truth obfuscation as explained by Peter Thiel rather than real empowerment
It’s facilitating accumulation of control and power at an unparalleled pace. If anything it’s proving to be more unjust than the feudal systems it promises to replace.
I may have been too harsh. I love capitalism, technology, and software—they’ve built a meritocratic world and given me the tools to build my own life.
AI and technology feel like my best friend, but also my worst enemy when they edge toward learned helplessness. That tension exists with anything we depend on: the closer we get, the more power it holds.
The relationship between user and technology is becoming deeply intimate as systems gain reach and control. It’s important to stay optimistic but skeptical—and to keep protesting everything—because the work is moving faster than our ability to register its consequences.
Reading back, I realise I drifted into more of a monologue than a conversation. I get carried away when I’m trying to reason things out in public. Still, I stand by the core point about balance and transparency in how we shape the web.
