The dead Internet is not a theory anymore

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Overall sense of a “dead internet”

  • Many see major platforms (Reddit, LinkedIn, Instagram, Google search) as increasingly flooded with AI‑generated “slop,” bots, and automated marketing agents.
  • Several argue this isn’t new (the internet always had bots), but the difference now is bots actively participating in discourse, comments, and social feeds.
  • Others push back: their daily experience still includes meaningful human interactions and small communities; the internet is “dead” mainly on big centralized platforms.

Centralized platforms vs “small internet”

  • Strong sentiment that large, ad‑driven, engagement‑optimized platforms both attract and quietly tolerate bots to inflate metrics.
  • Some welcome AI spam as an accelerant that will destroy the current social media model and push people toward:
    • Self‑hosted blogs and forums
    • BBS‑like systems, Gemini, VRChat, Discords
    • Small, invite‑only or local communities (“small internet theory”).
  • Counterpoint: discovery becomes nearly impossible if search is dominated by AI garbage, reducing incentives to create quality sites.

Identity, trust, and anti‑bot proposals

  • Proposed remedies:
    • Paid access (e.g., one‑time $10 posting fees, email postage, per‑message micropayments, proof‑of‑work like Hashcash).
    • Verified identities via government IDs, cryptographic credentials, or world‑coin‑like schemes.
    • Web‑of‑trust / invite‑only systems (Lobste.rs, torrent trackers, private forums, member‑only blogs).
    • Cryptographic pseudonymity and selective disclosure (age‑only proofs, ZKPs, JWT‑based systems).
  • Skepticism:
    • Fees may deter good users and barely slow well‑funded spammers or NGOs.
    • Web‑of‑trust and invite systems can be subverted and have historically failed or stayed niche.
    • Strong ID systems risk surveillance, state or corporate abuse, and fake “ghost populations.”
    • Any static credential can be handed to an AI agent.

Social and psychological angles

  • Some think AI slop will drive people offline or into smaller, human‑curated spaces; others expect most people to accept or even enjoy AI‑mediated feeds, especially younger users.
  • Several note addiction to phones and social apps, with a few using hardware blockers to break habits.
  • There’s debate whether it matters if content is human or AI as long as it’s “useful”; others argue the real crisis is trust, reputation, and signal‑to‑noise, not just authorship.