What should the internet be?

I can't tell if I hate the internet or if I love it.

There's a lot wrong with the internet nowadays, but I don't think it's inherent. I think it can be fixed, maybe, if we want it to.

The internet of today is a reflection of the society we've had which allowed it to happen. It's “decentralized” in the sense that there isn't a single website, just like under capitalism, “the company” doesn't exist. Neither the internet nor capitalism are too open about people making new websites/businesses though, it's a lot of work to host a server and it's a lot of work to set up a business. This oligarchic nature is obviously not ideal.

The ability for someone to say whatever they want sounded good until we actually made the internet, and now we're having to deal with the shortcomings of such a model. Misinformation, fascism, doxxing, propaganda, advertising, all of which are easy to find online. (whether or not that's desirable or not is up to you, I know that there are definitely scenarios where advertising may be useful or necessary beyond simply a way to compensate creators).

Disregarding google as a company for the time being, its search engine is genuinely useful. But do things like google docs need to exist, do they fill an important niche or can it be done better with an offline application? Where does the fediverse fit?

I'll think about it a little more. Robot Landscape