I don't enjoy the Internet any more
btao.org
August 18, 2026
3 min read
44/100
Summary
The writer says years of internet monetization and the recent spread of large language model-generated material have made online spaces less enjoyable and harder to use for meaningful learning and connection. They describe a childhood and career shaped by message boards, blogs, social networks, chatrooms, and online communities, where they made friends, found jobs, and encountered ideas that influenced their beliefs. They compare the growth of AI-generated content to the “pale” in Disco Elysium, a destructive nothingness that degrades information and gradually expands between the game’s regions. The writer says valuable communities and thoughtful sources still exist, including some people found on Bluesky, but are increasingly difficult to locate amid low-quality material. They criticize short-form posts and videos across platforms including Instagram, TikTok, X, Mastodon, and Bluesky as poor vehicles for serious engagement with knowledge, arguing that such formats encourage tribalism, groupthink, and intellectual laziness. The writer has stopped reading Hacker News because they believe too many front-page submissions are obviously LLM-written and may contain filler rather than worthwhile ideas. They support agentic software engineering but object to coworkers passing LLM-generated writing off as their own, saying it makes it harder to understand colleagues’ beliefs and reasoning and weakens collaboration.
Key Takeaways
- The writer says LLM-generated content has sharply worsened the signal-to-noise ratio online, making high-quality communities and ideas harder to find.
- They compare AI-generated internet content to the expanding, information-degrading “pale” from Disco Elysium.
- The writer argues that short-form posts and videos on platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, X, Mastodon, and Bluesky do not support serious engagement with knowledge.
- They stopped reading Hacker News because they believe many front-page stories are LLM-written and may be empty filler.
- The writer supports agentic software engineering but says undisclosed LLM-written workplace communication harms interpersonal understanding and collaboration.
What the discussion said
The AI-specific discussion was narrow but notably sour. Rather than debating a new model release or a technical breakthrough, commenters treated AI as part of the ambient clutter making the web less rewarding. One reader complained that even a community valued for old-web-style discussion can become dominated by streams of LLM stories, crowding out subjects they actually want to explore. Another objected to the common habit of cushioning criticism of AI with a declaration of support, arguing that this framing drains force from concerns before they are even made. There was little direct argument over model capability. The sole practical endorsement portrayed conversational LLMs as genuinely helpful, suggesting they can make the internet more useful at an individual level. But it immediately ran into the core reliability problem: usefulness is compromised when a user cannot establish whether the response is true. A reply to the anti-disclaimer complaint added a resigned view that AI’s economic momentum makes criticism feel powerless, not necessarily wrong. Overall, the thread does not reject AI on technical grounds so much as it resents AI’s omnipresence, promotional framing, and uncertain epistemic value.
Where opinion split
Whether AI critique needs an accompanying embrace of AI’s economic value. One side sees the ritual reassurance as a way of defanging legitimate criticism; the other treats widespread deployment as effectively unavoidable, making individual opposition seem politically futile.
Community Sentiment
Positives
- Conversational LLMs are seen as immediately useful tools, showing that AI can still deliver practical value even amid broad fatigue with the modern web.
Concerns
- LLM coverage is becoming so incessant that it can drown out the niche, human-curated discussions people still visit technical communities to find.
- Treating AI criticism as acceptable only after a pro-AI pledge turns serious concerns into ceremonial caveats before the argument even starts.
- Chat-based models may be handy, but their value collapses on consequential questions when users cannot tell sound answers from confident fabrication.
