Is the internet really dead?
Hey! 👋
In the past week, I came across two articles about the “dead internet.”
Are you familiar with this term? I wasn’t until now. 🤔
It’s a theory that states:
“Dead internet is one where there are no more people using it.”
And when I think about it… There really is more and more generic content, more platforms that are becoming increasingly similar, more bots generating content, and similar advertisements.
Especially now that AI is available to everyone.
But this isn’t just my feeling. The data confirms it: in 2016, security company Imperva discovered that 52% of all web traffic was generated by bots. In 2023, this number was 49.6%.
Even more interesting: in 2024, Google itself admitted that their search results are flooded with websites that are “created for search engines rather than people.” 🤦♂️
Link to the wiki article.
How it was before:
I remember the times when you had to search for ads and couldn’t find them. 😁 Oof, I’m not young anymore…
Elementary school. Computer club. In my hands, I’m holding a registration form for internet access via telephone line. At home, I dragged the computer to the hallway, where we had the landline phone, and connected to the internet for the first time.
I just relived that feeling I experienced back then. It was even stronger than a few years ago when I first used ChatGPT.
Back then we used:
- Netscape for browsing
- AltaVista for searching
- Matkurja - The first Slovenian search engine
The content we were reading was:
- Personal blogs
- Forums where friendships developed
- IRC channels where you could debate until morning
- Websites made purely out of love for a particular topic
💭 This was the internet where you could feel genuine human energy behind every corner.
And the time when mom or dad would hear THIS really good sound when they wanted to use the phone. 😃
How it is today:
Things have changed quite a bit. Today we have:
- Most content created by media and corporations
- Social networks full of bots and automated posts
- Search engines always leading us to the same big platforms
- Personal websites disappearing in favor of standardized profiles
Some concrete examples:
- On Twitter, Elon Musk discovered that between 5.3% and 13.7% of all accounts are bots
- Facebook already enables AI-generated responses in groups
- Meta plans to introduce “autonomous AI accounts” with profiles and images
So, is the internet really “dead”? 🔍
The dead internet theory claims that:
- Most web traffic is generated by bots
- Genuine human interactions are rare
- Content is becoming increasingly generic
Timothy Shoup from the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies has quite a dark prediction: by 2030, 99% of online content could be generated by AI. 😳
The Future: My Vision 🌱
I’m optimistic.
Even if there’s more and more AI-generated content, I’m not worried. If the content truly benefits you, then it doesn’t really matter how it’s generated. Plus, sometimes you need to look beyond the main media portals.
And let’s not forget:
- There’s actually more authentic content today than ever before - you just need to find it
- AI can help us get to relevant information faster
- Creating and sharing content is easier than ever before - AI can also help you express yourself in your style
- Small creators have more opportunities for their voice to reach further
The internet isn’t dead; on the contrary, it’s alive, constantly reshaping itself. And the best part is that we’re part of this reshaping. Each of us can contribute to a more authentic and better internet.
Create, you won’t regret it! 😉
Talk to you soon, Primož