I think the scenario posited here is the worse possible one where we are still chronically online but on a dead internet while being fully and relentless surveilled.
The internet of the future is an IQ test. Are you smart enough to get in, do your work in a focused manner, and get out so that you live your life? Many, many people will fail this test.
Counterpoint: meatspace is awful unless you're a normie. Christ, the day I got out of my small town and into a major city university dorm room with fast Internet was the day my life opened up. I found people with my interests. Etc.
"The Internet sucks. Get offline," is the battle cry of someone who likes Marvel movies and the book that Target has at the checkout line, or lives in one of about five cities in the USA.
Oof. You're missing out if you think meatspace is limited to target and big American cities. I agree that the web makes it easy(er) to connect with others in niche interests, but in-person experiences can be so diverse, vibrant, stimulating that I understand the simmering tug some have toward wanting the internet to become unusable. I agree with sibling that a "healed" internet, while very optimistic, is the ideal case.
Sincerely, your fellow terminally online HN commenter.
> You're missing out if you think meatspace is limited to target and big American cities.
The joke about middle-of-nowhere towns is that the only thing for teens to do in meatspace is to go to the Walmart. Because there's nothing else to do.
When people say things like this, they mean the good parts of the internet, e.g. real people who are able to be honest because a pseudonym allows them to say things they would be punished by evildoers for saying if the evildoers could identify them. Taking that away doesn't get you out of the engagement-optimized ad funnel, it just makes that be the only thing left.
The Internet is fine and the bad parts will heal or remove themselves if we remove the actual bad thing: smart phones. The Internet is not supposed to follow you around hence the term "In Real Life" or "meatspace". If you want to be "terminally online" you need to sit your ass down in front of a computer for hours.
> if we remove the actual bad thing: smart phones.
That's a tall order, although there are plenty of reports of younger people switching to "dumb phones." I've switched to one myself. But how could you possibly stop it? They are terrible -- now that I don't have one anymore it's insane how many people are constantly staring at their phones, walking on the sidewalk, crossing the street, etc. It's really depressing.
But ya, at this point I don't care if parts of the internet are fine and if I had the power to burn it all down, I would.