When the internet first arrived, it was gorgeous. It was like stepping into a beautiful hilled landscape with the trees yet to be planted. But instead of trees, we got billboards, and zombies.
Tried to shop for anything lately? It's all Temu and Shein, monopolising the shopping feed with advertising. It's even seeped into Marketplace. The diversity of the early years has given way to corporate monopolies - Amazon, Google, Meta. It's like the cool trendy marketplace where you used to get your groceries being razed by bulldozers and instead you have the bright lights of a mall. Even Etsy, the one site that supported homemade goods, is now just a place to buy Temu items.
Worse, these mega corporations control what we see through algorithms. We affectionately call them 'algos' here in Australia, but they're anything but friendly. No longer do we have organic discovery, but feeds driven by AI, advertising and curation we haven't personally and consciously chosen. I see the same reels my friends do. Joyful discovery is dead. Homogeneity is king.
Dartmoor, UK
Instead, we're passive consumers of polished content - damn, I miss the days where I'd spy into someone else's world on the other side of the planet and even befriend them because they seemed my kind of people. These days everything is so heavily orchestrated and choreographed to trick the algo I can't even trust the authenticity of anyone anymore. Content creators scour the platforms to find what's working well and rehash content to fit in with trends. True originality is hard to find. I've been watching 'Great Art Explained' on Youtube and wonder at the incredible artists of the last 300 years. Now, we have AI. It is absolutely not the same. Someone even sent me an AI mashup of two favourite songs which made me want to vomit. Search for 'AI mashup' and you'll get pages of people trying to get you to sign up and sub for - you guessed it, AI mashup sites.
Platforms such as Instagram keep us in gated communities or walled gardens because they're farming our data, tricking us to stay so we don't interact with the broader web. If you've been lost in a time warp of Instagram reels you'll know exactly what I mean. And where is the broader web, anyway? Page 10 of Google?
We're surveilled, tracked and monitored, our data used to mainipulate us even further. Freedom of expression has disappeared. We're not anonymous. We're regulated, censored and threatened with shadowbanning and account deletion. We can't be private or anonymous anymore. We're overregulated, overcensored, overmoderated.
Dartmoor
Search for a genuine review of a film online and you're met with corporate owned platforms that read the same. Most are written by AI. The 'good' articles are behind paywalls no one can afford but the wealthy, another sub we shave away in favour of paying our internet bill or buying food. You have to be a critical thinker to seek out diversity of voices and perspectives to form real opinions, but no one does that anymore. We read headlines and swallow bias and live in bubbles and think we are the ones who know the truth and everyone else is mad. Large scale discussions and polarised opinions are encouraged with click bait questions that help drive traffic.
There's no novelty or innovation with new platforms anymore - incremental improvements, maybe, but nothing that will rock the boat. If tech innovations happen, it's in the macro worlds of Apple or Google - small developers haven't got a chance against these mega systems.
I read somewhere that since 2017 half the internet is run by bots. Everyone should use the internet and believe nothing - it's more than likely fake news, even if they appear trustworthy. How can you truly learn in a landscape that feeds you disinformation and has vested interest? And with the rise of AI, you can't even trust what you see. We've moved beyond the fear of deep fake. It's shallow fake and we're all falling for it. No one looks closer. If I challenge the fake news or fake images that friends or family members share, I'm meant with a shrug. 'It's cool anyway' they say. Or worse: 'it might be true though.'
Is Hive simply a microcosm of the larger internet, mirroring the dead hills of a dream landscape we brought into being?
Arguably, it still has it's own form of censorship. Certain niches aren't favoured by the whales, and users flock to more popular communities in the hope of being curated with larger votes. Where money is concerned, the populace flocks where they're more chance of favour. Downvotes can make more radical thinkers shrink from the platform as it's hard to make their voice heard when a few bad players criticise by weight of opinion rather than engage in discussion or simply scroll on. Downvotes are absolutely useful to eliminate behaviour from vote farmers and plagiarists, but can be crippling for those who don't quite understand what they've done wrong.
Dartmoor
Yet for a truly authentic experience, people can still create content within their passion areas and interact with human beings. Engagement isn't dead in the same way it might be on other platforms - we just need a bigger user base for it to truly come alive. Communities can encourage original and excellent niche content within their particular gardens, supporting it however they can and trying to get more eyes on it.
Uniformity and homogeneity is usually yawned at - post the same vanilla content or advertising for your business in the form of an AI written blog, and everyone gets bored enough to pay you no mind. Arguably, Hive should have advertising so the money is fed back into the development of the platform or promoting it more widely, but most reject it because we're here in this little forest because the hills around it have been razed by corporate greed.
There's still room for innovators here, for small developers who get to practice code and create cool things. Anyone can have a go - if it's terrible, we won't use or support it, but we'll see it, that's for sure, and we'll give it a go. The consensus mechanisms that drive HIVE are far better than the corporate algos.
We can read independent book and film reviews, discuss investment strategies with well versed finance gurus, get our fiction critiqued and even read, show off our art and photographs, fine tune our skills through practice, sharing and discussion. Sure, some days we have crickets, and new users can struggle to get a foothold, but that's improving as community leaders and larger stake holders make efforts to make them feel welcome and valued.
Hive may have it's flaws, but the view of the hills here is pretty nice. It's not dead yet.
With Love,
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You raise a point that really resonates with me because it's a topic that has been on my mind for almost a year now: the algorithms shaping our online experience. I even started a small series about it on Hive, but I didn’t feel entirely legitimate talking about it, so I stopped.
From what I’ve learned and tested, the key to avoiding being trapped in an algorithmic bubble is to use platforms intentionally. It requires constant vigilance. It may seem obvious to us, since we know algorithms tend to flatter us. But when I talk about this with friends or family who aren’t aware of the issue, they don’t even see it as a problem. And that often frustrates me to no end.
The most effective thing I’ve done is delete TikTok. The downside is that my time on Instagram has increased significantly. I can’t delete it because I use it to communicate with friends. That said, I found a feature to disable some personalized recommendations, and I’ve set a screen time limit of 30 minutes per day (which is still a lot, I know).
The real wake-up call came when I watched a video from someone I highly respect for her intelligence. She explained how she gained much of her knowledge by reading books since childhood. But over the past year, she’s fallen into the short video loop (Shorts, TikTok, Reels) and can no longer read more than five pages without getting bored, putting the book down, and going back to the short video spiral.
All this to say that the comfort of personalization quickly becomes an invisible trap.
What I appreciate about Hive is that the platform allows you to break free from this dynamic. It promotes more human and authentic interactions, which is great because it brings back that joy of discovery we’ve lost elsewhere. The lack of algorithmic manipulation encourages creating and exploring out of passion rather than optimization.
I never would have imagined sharing my journey, even if it's slow, of building my tiny house, or discussing topics close to my heart, on any other social network.
Awesome comment. I've recently started intentionally going back to books. I barely read anymore and I was so greedy for literature. Reading books is now an act of resistance to the attention economy.
If we get algorithms I will immediately power down. Sure, it's an effort to find people sometimes but it's possible to create favourite author lists and so on..
It frustrates me too when others don't see algos as an issue or are aware they live in a curated bubble.
Great post and yes I think exactly the same as you :) Now the internet has finally arrived at a spot where decentralization is needed to keep it alive. Probably the mainstream media people still did not have recognized that but eventually, they will. Hive on the other hand has very big problems when it comes to onboarding but there are people like @vsc.network working on that. Hopefully, they finish lite accounts in production as soon as they are needed to handle mass adoption. In the meantime, communities and apps on Hive will keep pushing their quality and maybe in a year or two we will be able to welcome masses here on our decentral platform :)
I hope so too!! 🚀
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I love the idea that all this time we have been making it READY for more people. There's still a way to go but jeez look at Peakd now . It's incredible how far we have come!
The first time this mind set was revealed to me was in Goa, India in the late 70s. For the price of a mile walk up a beach one could attend full moon parties where electric bands entertained and free liquid LSD was administered from a dropper. Sound good? Damn straight.
Yet there they were, the older freaks who had been in Goa since the late 60s. Back then if you were a commonwealth citizen no visa was required to stay in India.
Those older freaks were always quick to say, "Hey you should have been here in the 60s. This place is nothing like it was back in the day. My guess is that my generation of Goa Freaks are now living in the new beach condos from profits sending hash back to the west saying, "Hey you should have been here in the late 70s. This place is nothing like it was back in the day."
That is not to mean that you are mistaken in your observations yet have you tried the Dark Web? It is not all drugs and criminals, however they do exist. What you will not find is corporate ads or algo directed search engines. In fact any search engine is flakey at best. Instead it takes exploration like you spoke of in the WWW's beginnings.
The same cry is heard about how the internet can be pulled down by the powers that shouldn't be through their control of Dynamic Name Servers or their ability of banning sites. They overlook the fact that anyone can run a DNS and anyone can choose to use it in their system settings. They weren't around in my heady days prior to the World Wide Web. Back then my hobby project Bulletin Board Service (BBS) boasted that its network (Citadel) could get emails from the east to west coast of Canada in 2 short days, which was faster than Canada Post at the time. This all done through antiquated land lines over 300 baud modems. Its still an option if the shit really flies with censorship. Although an option my point is not to suggest that it was better than present tech. But it did make one feel empowered and created community the likes of which you may see fading in the present corporate hold on the WWW.
My point? Tech changes and we must be ready to adapt and change with it. Just because Bill Gates dumbed down most computer users to follow the path that the Powers That Shouldn't Be lay out for us doesn't mean we can't explore the tech to work the way we want. That is something that HIVE Devs demonstrate daily.
Nor will it ever be, because centralization is going to loose every time to decentralization in this world in which we are now living.
Mate, everything was better in the 70s 😂😂 Truth.
Like us surfers talking about how the waves were better in the '90s. Wait.. every thing was better in the 90s too...
... Then the Internet got bigger.
I'll come back to this... It's my bday and my hubs is just about to drop me a coffee .. naked.
Happy Happy Birthday!!!🥳🥳🥳
Thankyou! We are on way to coast for a coffee and almond croissant.
I know what you mean about being reluctant to decry modern tech in favour for a mournful lament for the good old days. I used to be an advocate for how tech could be used in the classroom, for example, using blogs and podcasts to encourage students voices. However, I'm now more a Luddite in that I can't help screaming about how tech is replacing the human - creativity, individuality - in favour of the corporate. Yes, we can overthrow if we all rally together (Australia currently trying to ban social media for kids under 14) but Godzilla is pretty unstoppable.
So, yes, Hive. It's the only place I can feel a modicum of joy and reminisce about 'the good old days' and be part of something that still feels like it's trying to be meaningful and for the people, despite its flaws.
That summarises well our current internet experience.. google claims 200k results, but limits my results to 2 pages sometimes... where is the rest of the internet? Hive is a unique bubble where we can still thrive and have a fun community not hidden by the algos.
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Yeah I would trust a review here over Google any day!!!
HIVE definitely reminds be a bit of the early internet. I try to use alternatives to megacorp services online. I search with Startpage or DuckDuckGo, but the top results are still often what you describe: corporate portals and garbage AI articles that only appear to be what I want at first. Websites I used to like lost their way chasing clicks and often got bought up by bigger companies eager to profit at the expense of the old reputation for creativity. I often shop directly from manufacturers. I have studiously avoided Temu, AliExpress, and the like. It's not good in general.
I agree. I absolutely refuse to buy from them and can't believe people do. We need a corporate free internet - Hive could be it.
I feel overwhelmed by the same old content and ads on platforms like Instagram and TikTok. It’s frustrating when everything seems so curated and fake. I miss the days when discovering new things felt exciting and genuine. Hive feels like a breath of fresh air, where I can explore original content and connect with people who share my interests. It’s nice to know there are still spaces out there that value creativity and authenticity! Let’s keep supporting those communities
Yes and we have to actively support as well... It's up to us to engage with people in the communities we love. I've always said the user has a great personal responsibility here.
There are still a lot of places and people online that do not conform. If you get too fed up with the corporatocracy, there's always the dark web.
You know, I'm ashamed to say I don't even know how to get there.
The easiest way is to make yourself a bootable TAILS usb stick. They're also handy for recovering your PC if your OS fails.
https://tails.net/
The easiest way is to make yourself a bootable TAILS usb stick. They're also handy for recovering your PC if your OS fails.
https://tails.net/
Yeah.. Hive is still breathing.😁
Sure not dead, I even noticed some more activity last weeks and some old Hivers showing up again.
Oh yeah worse, worse indeed. Much more worse than you can imagine. You have no idea how much worse things are. Well, unless... unless you click where you should click to find out how worse they are. ;o)
Ha love that. You gotta get off screen and take a risk with life huh? I mean it's scary out there but at least you'll have a great story to tell on Hive 😄
!PIZZA
I agree with this detailed and thoughtful piece. One of the core reasons for the worldwide web was connection and community. Centralization has taken this away from the web, but tools like #hive have restored this possibility. Serendipity and connectivity are much more enriching - so much more than the algo feeds - all of which are peppered with random ads. Thanks for making us connect, talk, and think.
The more I'm here, the more I think it's the answer