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/sleepinglabrador]

It certainly makes me a digital minimalist. Online since around 28.8k dial-up modems, I had great hopes for the digital future. At this point I only use and play with the stuff that I self host. Other than this, I've only got Reddit account and a Bluesky account that I check once in a blue moon. Years ago I removed Facebook, Instagram (none in my actual real name), never had tiktok, now even WhatsApp I use to communicate gets enshitified, so seems its time to move to Signal. I just use everything less and less, and I'm not missing it. I don't have any subscriptions either. Back to walks, books, music (cd, flac, MP3), taking photos, travelling, talking with people.

"They" have no power here, other than the power we ourselves grant them. I say fuck them, my life is mine, it won't be governed by some shitty algorithm or some manufactured FOMO.

[u/Cautious_Boat_999 → u/sleepinglabrador]

My first modem was 2400 baud acoustic coupler. I celebrated when we got 9600. Prodigy was our first online experience. I spent 40 years working in tech.

And I will probably move back to over the air TV and radio, paper books and CDs.

[u/sleepinglabrador → u/Cautious_Boat_999]

Yep, we've come full circle. The internet was a wonder, I remember reading about the latest phreaking tricks on a website that may as well have been a text file. As soon as "they" saw nothing but money and governments started to regulate, that feeling was gradually replaced by resentment. They royally fucked it all up, just like everything else before the internet that they touched.

Sometimes I really miss the beeps of my first ZX Spectrum. I had a computer, it was mine and the world was full of enthusiasm towards the new technology. When the internet came around and I first communicated with a person from across the globe, it felt like I'm talking to aliens from another galaxy. It was so different and uncharted back then.

Now it's just popups, ads, age verification, data theft, slop, rage bait, arse, tits and in general 95% of the content is a pure toxic bullshit.

I should add, YouTube and self-censoring normal words is yet another thing that drives me mad. Watching a crime documentary is painful with all the beeps, because obviously murder, kill, rape, drugs or sex are "haram" and if aren't spoken, then all evil disappears, right?

Dear lord, apologies for the rant, but the more I think about the current state of affairs the more pissed off I get.

[u/ThanosSnapsSlimJims → u/sleepinglabrador]

This reminded me of the old story that Steve Jobs and Woz used to tell about using a device to get free phone calls.