▸The Old Internet Is Not Gone
There's a lot to agree with in Terry's essay on the Old Internet. His thesis that there is an enduring un-ownable layer to the internet is spot on.
I love his optimism.
But I think his conclusion…
The next decade is going to be strange for any company whose value proposition was: we host the place where you talk to your friends.
…is wrong.
A small and beautiful corner of the internet is fighting back against enshittification—building out of love and passion, writing because they have something to say, not ad space to sell. I love people doing that.
But for most people, the internet is in Apps.
Instagram and TikTok, WhatsApp and Messenger, ChatGPT and Claude, the App Store and Play Store. Those are the internet.
I've seen Facebook declared dead, only to see it rear up again like a Hydra that lost only a head.
Some platforms may fall away, but new ones will arise in their place.
If you want to stop this vicious cycle of enshittification, you need to stop it at the source.
The problem is the incentive structure of a growth-dependent economic system demanding that the value of their stocks go up.
Until the incentives change, I think we shall see this cycle repeat.