Everything feels a little broken lately. You’ve noticed it when you try to search for a recipe and get hit with ten paragraphs of AI-generated life story before the ingredients. Or when your social feed is suddenly a ghost town of "suggested" posts from people you don't even know. Honestly, the phrase the end is here isn't just a meme or a doom-scroll headline anymore; it's a technical reality for the way we’ve used the web since the early 2000s.
The old internet—the one built on human-to-human connection, reliable search results, and "free" services fueled by data—is basically on life support.
We aren't just talking about a vibe shift. This is a structural collapse. We are currently witnessing the death of "the open web" as we knew it, replaced by something far more closed, far more expensive, and significantly weirder.
The Search Engines Are Eating Themselves
Google isn't what it used to be. You know it, I know it. Researchers at German universities actually spent a year studying this, and they found that search results are getting demonstrably worse. The reason is simple: SEO spam. For years, companies have been gaming the system, but now that generative AI can churn out millions of words for pennies, the floodgates are open.
When people say the end is here for traditional search, they are looking at the "Dead Internet Theory."
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It’s the idea that most of the internet is now just bots talking to other bots. If an AI writes an article, and another AI reads it to summarize it for a third AI-driven search engine, where does the human go? We’re left in the cold. We are seeing a massive retreat into "Dark Social." People are fleeing public forums for private Discord servers, WhatsApp groups, and Slack channels. They want to talk to real people, not algorithms optimized to sell them dropshipped plastic.
Why LLMs Killed the Golden Goose
Large Language Models (LLMs) are amazing, but they are also parasitic. They need human data to learn. But here’s the kicker: because they are flooding the web with AI content, they are starting to train on their own "garbage."
Scientists call this "model collapse."
If you feed an AI its own output long enough, it starts to lose its mind. It gets stupider. It forgets the nuances of human language. By trying to automate the whole internet, tech companies might have accidentally poisoned the well they drink from. It’s a bit of a mess, frankly.
Social Media’s "Enshittification"
The term was coined by Cory Doctorow. It describes the lifecycle of every platform you’ve ever loved. First, they are good to users. Then, they need money, so they become good to advertisers at the expense of users. Finally, they become bad to everyone just to squeeze out the last bit of profit for shareholders.
For platforms like X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, and even TikTok, the end is here for the "growth at all costs" era.
Remember when you could just post a photo of your lunch and your friends would see it? Those days are gone. Now, if you aren't a "content creator" putting out high-octane video three times a day, the algorithm treats you like you don't exist. This has led to a massive burnout. People are tired of being "on." They are tired of the performance.
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The Pivot to Subscriptions
Since ad revenue is cratering and bots are making metrics unreliable, everything is going behind a paywall. You want to see news? Pay. You want to see a creator's best work? Patreon. You want a blue checkmark? Ten bucks a month.
The "free" internet was always a lie, but at least it felt accessible. Now, we are moving toward a fragmented web where your experience is dictated by how many monthly subscriptions you can afford. It’s the "cable-ization" of the internet.
Digital Rot and the Loss of History
Have you ever tried to find a specific blog post from 2008? It's probably gone. Link rot is a silent killer. According to a Pew Research study, about 38% of all web pages that existed in 2013 are no longer accessible.
When we say the end is here, we’re also talking about the end of our digital memory.
We assumed the internet was forever. It’s not. It’s incredibly fragile. Servers get shut down. Companies go bankrupt. Domain names expire. We are living through a "Digital Dark Age" where the records of our lives are disappearing faster than the paper records of our grandparents.
What Happens Next?
So, if the old way is dying, what’s left? It’s not all doom and gloom, but it is going to be different. Very different.
The future is likely going to be smaller. We are seeing a return to the "Small Web"—independent blogs, personal newsletters (hello, Substack), and niche communities. There’s a growing movement of people who are intentionally building websites that are "hand-coded" and slow. They aren't trying to rank on Google. They aren't trying to go viral. They just want to exist.
Proving You Are Human
In a world full of AI, the most valuable thing you can have is "Proof of Personhood."
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We’re going to see more tech designed just to prove you aren't a bot. Whether that’s through crypto-keys, biometric data, or "verified" social circles, the walls are going up. The "wild west" era of being anonymous online might be the next thing to go.
Actionable Steps for the New Era
If you're feeling overwhelmed by the shift, you aren't alone. Navigating the end of the old web requires a bit of a strategy change.
Archive what matters to you. Don't trust the cloud. If there are photos, articles, or videos you truly care about, download them. Use tools like the Wayback Machine to save pages you think might disappear. Buy physical hard drives.
Support "Human" platforms. If you find a writer, artist, or journalist you like, support them directly. Move away from the big aggregators that hide human talent behind layers of AI-generated noise.
Curate your own feed. Stop letting the "For You" page decide what you think about. Use RSS feeds—yes, they still work—to follow specific websites. It puts you back in the driver's seat.
Verify everything. Since the end is here for reliable public information, you have to be your own fact-checker. If a story seems too perfectly designed to make you angry, it probably was. Look for primary sources. Check the "About" page. Look for a physical address or a real name.
The internet isn't going away, but the version we grew up with is definitely leaving the building. It's time to stop waiting for it to get back to "normal" and start building something better in the ruins.