I keep hearing people repeat this idea that “they” destroyed the free internet. but isn’t the internet still free and wild? can’t I just create a website by myself and be as creative as I want just like the olden days?
to me, the biggest shift has been in the people, who let themselves simmer in the capitalist pan frog-style as companies took over. we stopped looking at the internet as a place to roam and explore and now expect content to be spoon-fed to us like we didn’t have a choice… we just turned from brave explorers into lazy customers (and products) by our own will (though whether free will even exists is a whole other conversation hehe)
another interesting aspect here is the capitalist mindset that things are not worth if they aren’t productive. in the internet this translates as reach and engagement. there have been absurdly long debates here about the “success” of lemmy/fediverse based solely on quantitative metrics. there’s still internet beyond big techs and content aggregators but we simply don’t think of them as relevant
malicious compliance: getting your team to wear this and stay as still as possible at the office