The internet is a cesspit. That's not an accident, it's a design feature

Yes, the internet is getting worse and no, you are not imagining it. Whether it is 10,000 hyperbolic reviews praising a piece of plastic junk from China, a search engine result that turns up more ads than answers, or the rampant creation of fake news by generative artificial intelligence, the average user's experience has deteriorated. And that is without even mentioning the entity formerly known as Twitter. Sure, it is still an eighth wonder of the world that you can do so much without ever leaving a screen. My child self, with my six library tickets (my own, my dad's…