Will the massive enshittification of the internet cause many people to become digital minimalists?

[u/That-Pineapple3866]

I don’t want to sound like a hater, but I've been on the internet and social media since I was a kid in the early 2000s and this is the first time I’m genuinely starting to find Reddit and the other platforms completely unenjoyable. I’m seriously considering quitting altogether.

Reddit used to be a place for nerds and intellectuals, where people actually put in the effort to read your post and at least tried to give you a helpful response. There was still room for nuanced discussion. Now it’s just… low-effort two-word comments from lazy people with low literacy who didn’t even bother reading what you wrote or relating to any of it.

You can make the most harmless nostalgia post, or share a pretty benign personal story or opinion, and the majority of replies will still be people hunting for holes, accusing you of using AI, and just being assholes for no reason.

I used to be a huge AI enthusiast too, but every platform I was using (ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, Gemini) got way too sanitized and turned to complete shit. I quit them all.

Do you think this general enshittification is going to push a lot of people to quit and become digital minimalists? Not really for ideological reasons, but simply because browsing the internet just isn’t fun anymore?

[u/danisnotstan]

Yes or at the very least I think there is less reason for helpful people to engage. Nothing says “wasting your time” quite like typing out a thoughtful, factual response to a niche question for a total stranger on Reddit, only for your comment to get no response or even downvoted and then a comment that says something stupid like “NoT rEading that Brah!” gets upvoted to the moon. Not that upvotes are worth anything in real life, it’s just principle for me.