The slow creep was real. Social media corporations brought the mainstream to the internet in the worst possible way, but the old internet was still alive in forums and chats and discussion groups that had been around for years.

Reddit destroyed it. It gathered everyone into one place. It was constantly growing and pulled users from everywhere else in the internet to one place. Centralization. Then, it inevitably went corpo to the point that the greed of the ones on top destroyed the communities they gathered and exploited to put themselves in their elevated positions of wealth.

To be clear, the people with the money don’t care at all. They cashed out and got theirs. Everything burns around their greed, no different from oil companies.

The internet was supposed to connect everyone, share ideas, connect the world to collective knowledge, and bring us all together. Instead, it became a tool of corporatist and fascist control. Reddit ultimately ended up being the corpo that crushed and scattered the opposition.

“The best time to join the fediverse is 10 years ago, second best time is today.”

• Wayne Gretzky
• Michael Scott

When Facebook came around, I immediately saw what it would lead to. Hell, just the thought of sharing your personal details for anyone and everyone to read was extremely creepy to me. Any time I tried to communicate this to people asking me why I wasn't on Facebook it achieved nothing. Pushback was useless, people want what they perceive as "convenience" even when they have to (almost literally) sell their souls to the machine. No, I don't think pushback would have helped, because people want these - and I shudder to call them such - services. The Internet was doomed the day it became mainstream.

When I was young, I was called a nerd for using computers. People online were primarily nerds who cared about tech. Those days are long gone, and there was nothing that could've been done to prevent the rot. It was inevitable as the Internet became more popular.

The masses will always be asses. They don't care. They will eat corporate slop and ask for seconds until their bloated corpses burst. The best we can do is create alternative infrastructures and wait with horror as they start to rot too.

Jesus, I think I'm having a bit of a blue day.

Yep. That is the regret.