Saturday, September 12th, 2026, 5:05 pm
How The Web Died
Filed under: What we can tell future generations and why many of my generation can probably relate
still vividly remember when I was 21 and began my Ph.D. degree at the Victoria Uni. of Manc. (before the UMIST merger).
The Web was just over a decade old back then. There was a lot of stuff people could not find on the Web. Spamfarms did exist, search engines certainly worked, but no slop was taken seriously (yes, it could be produced even back then, maybe it would be called “chaff” rather than “AI”).
Nobody would take slop seriously back then. There was no justification for the costs, either.
I remember looking through old archives of mine looking for things I can scan and upload. I wanted to add material to my personal site. To a certain extent I did. Some was already digitalised.
Now, in 2026, the Web is a junkyard. There’s little need to add anything to it unless it’s unique and of real value.
New stuff can barely be considered discoverable, unless it’s outsourced to some social control media and the user “mines” (wastes time on) ‘friends’.
The Web has generally been devalued not because of “bad people” who joined it. Bad companies are filling it with trash and erecting walled gardens.
RIP, Web.
