A lot of what I am reading on the internet is rapidly going away. The classic print sources, newspapers, magazines, etc, can not survive on the sale of their papers and magazines, there are just not enough buyers to support them. They are thus creating pay walls to raise the money to continue to exist. This however in my mind may well destroy them. I am not willing to pay the LA Times $116 a year to have unlimited access to its content. Then I would have to subscribe to dozens of other services also. I may not read one of their articles for weeks, but then I am reading something and it takes me to them as a source, I hit the pay wall, and drop the subject. There is nothing similar to a streaming charge to listen or download a song. I no longer buy music disks either, the price of the disk for 1 or 2 songs is not worth it. During the course of a single day I may well look at a dozen different sources, Rawles has little content that he has created, his blog is an excellent source of information collected from other sources and a map to the rabbit hole to find those sources. In more and more cases that very valuable approach used by many blogs, is no longer worth following up. Then between the net being used to monitor and punish you, so called members of the violent protests at the capital are named and a very biased view taken of their actions. 2021 storming of the United States Capitol - Wikipedia This can and has lead to both legal and social actions taken against those who have expressed their opinions in some manner not approved by the mob or the left. It is no longer a place of free social discourse. Added to the censorship that the major net power brokers are ever expanding, Facebook, etc, it is rapidly nearing the goals set out in the book 1984, and less and less a statement of what people may think and more and more a means of control. I think that the collapse of the internet as a means of discourse, has helped me reestablish the old face to face contacts and speaking directly to people. Sometimes the strongest communications are those that are not spoken but the ones unspoken. Anyone who has had a cat or dog will know exactly what I mean. What are the experiences of others to these changes in the lst few years?
There have been whisperings of a new internet being built in plain site. Its called the quantum internet and it takes down the centralization of power from big tech the same way bitcoin takes the power away from banksters. The Starlink satellites are said to be the first wave of the new decentralized internet. Some countries think they can control people easier but from what I have been reading it is going to take away all the tracking and censoring. If that happens people will be free to say what they want again without fear of reprisal. I haven't had time to read all of this yet but lets hope its for good and not for evil. https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2020/07/f76/QuantumWkshpRpt20FINAL_Nav_0.pdf The Quantum Internet of the Future is Here What Is Quantum Internet? What is the quantum internet? Everything you need to know about the weird future of quantum networks | ZDNet
I was in the "Newspaper Business " as USA Today brought out their colorful Kids Comic Book style rag I said it then and it is happening, "There goes the real news sources". People can hardly talk/carry on an intelligent conversation now and many cannot read and use the Vids on the Net as News.
And perhaps even more regrettably take the vids as gospel and parrot the opinions of the vid poster without trying to find counter arguments. Sad that the educational "system" can't see that.
I put most UTuber’s in the same category as Elite Entertainers and Pro Athletes... Nice to look, at but their opinions are no more relevant, to me, than the Drunk Homeless Bag Lady pushing her stolen Grocery Basket down the street...
I used to write for the LA TIMES back in the late 90's as freelance under a guy named David Willman and I remember Bush Jr was big in the news at the time. Jr. passed a few royal decrees that allowed the state to take over public TV and the LAT got rid of all their journalists. They figured they could just rehash the news stories posted on the internet. We all saw that as the end of free press in America. The source of their news was directly from the fed. That's the plot of a bad movie or dictatorship depending on your perspective. If you look at their sources, most of the stuff in the paper is still reprinted from other sources. Mostly AP which, if you didn't know, is just a NWO mouthpiece. I think they kept 6 writers on the payroll. Not sure where it stands today. I don't read most of their crap anymore.
Or more likely don't do any research and put down and label anything they don't like as "conspiracy theory". We see a lot of that now a days. Trolling is ANTIFA 101. It seems that happens 1000x more often but is also widely accepted. Irony... I see daily news stories that quote unreliable sources and then claim "opinion" as a defense and say 'we are the NYT so we are never wrong'. NYTimes is in a law suit right now for doing that. More irony... My own brother quoted Wikipedia as a factual source even though it says right on their main page that they are NOT a source of factual information. What about those of us who have been "fact checked" as false only to trace it back to lies found on Wikipedia which were later taken down? Most of the "independent fact checkers" actually work for, and are paid by, they place they are fact checking. So how is that independent? If anyone thinks TV and news papers are reliable or anything more than propaganda, they are way behind the 8 ball.
The blog American Thinker yesterday had an article written by a Russian writer who fled the USSR and came to the US. He recently found out that he had been disappeared by Google. Articles written for incorrect sites were not listed and as he checked, he found out it was actually quite common. So it would seem that not only the power to tax is the power to destroy, but the power to control the output of the search results is also the power to destroy. https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/05/getting_disappeared_by_google_.html When I search for an item, machine tool parts, tool parts, etc, I often have to go to the second or third page to get beyond the paid ads for the item I searched for. Thus while they may state that they checked 1,000,000 items, the chance of a local source or a small firm being listed is remote. The search engines, you tube, social sites, etc are in fact rapidly becoming the "gate keepers" for access to the net and political thought. Their actions in the past have not always been in the best interests of society as a whole, but are used to reinforce the views held by a section of the elites and of selected political groups. Doesn't look good for the long run and our present society, the changes in the last 10 or so years have changed that civil and political society into something I no longer recoginize.
I'm not so concerned about the internet shrinking as going BLIP! Dark. Forever. Maybe tomorrow. I agree that I'm doing more face-to-face with folks on issues of the day. I will start a conversation with anyone about anything. This has kept me alive more than a few times. Don't try that with your internet persona. (There are some great memes on the topic, but I'm sure you've seen them.) You only learn to talk to strangers in meat space, and it's a skill that needs practice. Masks have hindered communication as well, and I am happy to see them fading away. Dogs have very acute instincts for judging people. Mine aren't that sharp, but they've always kept me safe. Interestingly, as good as I am at identifying threats, I seem to also be able to pick up prepper vibes, or political leanings. Or maybe I just look harmless enough that strangers open up to me about these things. I've met some fascinating, intelligent prepper folk who are hiding in plain sight. Our conversations are always memorable and they have their own reasoned opinions. I never miss an opportunity to unplug and go talk to my neighbors. The internet is an interesting distraction, it's good for entertainment and to have access to the resources (however trustworthy) that are available. But when the internet goes down, you'll need people to talk to and people skills to deal with strangers that your instincts tell you aren't right. Practice, practice, practice.
I can say, first hand, that 99% of any media source is driven by income and nothing else. TV programming is an interruption of the revenue stream. Ratings exist so the sales people can approach clients with viewership numbers to get more money. Market share determines prices, so that an ad in NYC at 9 pm costs 100 times as much as an ad at 9 pm in Wherearewe, Montana. Hunter Thompson said this about it: “The TV business is uglier than most things. It is normally perceived as some kind of cruel and shallow money trench through the heart of the journalism industry, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs, for no good reason.” This was penned before the internet was a thing, and it now applies to the internet as well. From search engines that show what they want you to see rather than what you searched for to deliberate mis-information. It has become a sounding board for radical ideas and fear mongering and the truth of anything one reads must be questioned and compared to other sources to get factual information. I blame the internet for most of what we see wrong with our country, because we have dumbed-down our younger generations to the point that they are no longer free thinking persons that recognize attempts to lead them astray. This is all in the name of making profits. Businesses that once relied on paper and ink can't compete because one person with a legitimate account can (and does) share the account or copy and paste. Our local paper went from a 5 pound Sunday behemoth to a 5 page rag printed 2 counties away. When they finally ceased all local operations one of the reporters was quoted as saying there was no way to compete with the internet where people could get information immediately rather than waiting on the next morning paper. Now people who live all across the US contribute stories to the local website of the paper, and have no idea of the local "feel". As long as anything is driven by ratings and greed, the truthfulness must be questioned.
