we must reclaim the cyberspace

The internet I grew up in no longer exists.

The internet, with its hyper-fast communication flows, was meant to enable the new golden age for humanity. We were promised to have a global village where tribes transcend the limitations of geography. We could find our people wherever they were. Our ideas, our niche interests were supposed to connect us with others in the vast network of nodes. If, only if, we can discover them.

Instead, what we got is the commodification of communication. The connection that was promised to us has been reformatted in terms of the market: “How can a practice, experience, or feeling be monetized?” Yes, discoverability is solved thanks to search engines and social media platforms. But now we connect, not to each other, but to the algorithm. We no longer contribute ideas to each other, but to the circulation of the “content”.

We must reclaim the cyberspace.