[krapp]

I won't mock you, I get where you're coming from, but I think you're forgetting just how revolutionary many aspects of the internet have been. The ability to publish to a potentially global audience without a corporate mediator. Do commerce without physically going to a store or ordering over a phone. Access to information, culture and education beyond what can fit in one's local library. Bank without an ATM. Even just being able to communicate worldwide without long-distance charges (remember those) or an envelope and stamp. Even social media, which everyone hates, was a revolution in that it got people easily using the web to network and communicate en masse, whereas prior it was just people behind pseudonyms on niche forums. There is a real and tacit improvement in the quality of life for at least millions of people behind each of those.

Reducing the internet to only world-destroying negatives and writing off its positives as "snake oil" seems unnecessarily hyperbolic, as obvious as the negatives are. Although I suppose it's easier to accept the destruction of the internet if you believe that it was never worth anything to begin with. But I disagree that nothing of value is being lost. Much of value is being lost. That's what's tragic.