Internet's mass adoption has reduced variety, forum users say

More users, less variety: the internet paradox

Never before have so many people been connected, yet critics argue there is less to discover. The network where, in 1996, one needed only a mailing list accessed by dialing a private number is now a space where millions watch the same short video, repeat the same opinion, and pay for the same subscription. Several forum users share this thesis: every time a medium becomes massified, it becomes homogeneous. According to them, the internet, the last major medium, did not escape this rule.

Those who browsed before 2005 claim there was more variety with a fraction of today's users. The timeline varies: some place the golden age between 1995 and 2000, antiestéticaturing ICQ, IRC, and Usenet; others stretch it from 1998 to 2005; some fix it between 2005 and 2010, when dating sites were still useful, while others assert it ended before 2005 or even before the internet existed.

When was the golden age of the internet?

This disagreement is the key data point. One participant summarizes it sarcastically: it is typical of older generations to believe their youth was better. The meme depicting the web as a container for adult content dates back to 2005, and some read it as the death certificate of an era: five years of decline before modern social networks arrived.

One participant bluntly identifies Facebook as the turning point that broke the internet. This accusation is theirs alone, not a shared diagnosis: others distribute blame among advertising and short formats, designed to retain attention rather than provide value.

The modem, mailing lists, and connections at 22:00

The scene that best portrays that early network is domestic and somewhat absurd: a computer left on all day at a stranger's house, which required calling by phone to download messages from a technical list. Users connected at a fixed hour, 22:00, and if another user was ahead, the line was busy and they had to wait. The frustration was monumental.

That setup had an unintended virtue: filtering. The cost of entry was high—a desktop PC, a phone line, and a contracted connection—and this barrier excluded a large part of the population, according to those defending this thesis. Those inside tended to be curious, technical, and people with something to say. When the possibility of downloading photos appeared, alongside text, it seemed like the end of history.

What changed with the smartphone?

The smartphone, which one participant places after 2015 as the date of mass access, broke down barriers. A computer was no longer necessary; a device in your pocket sufficed. The result has two sides that should not be confused. On one hand, anyone can publish and create. On the other, everyone publishes, and volume buries signal under noise.

Some analyses attribute deterioration to this unfiltered access, placing mass arrival in the digital environment in the second half of the last decade. The objection is reasonable: technology does not decide anything by itself; it is people and economic incentives that guide its use.

Why does everything point to a paid internet?

A participant's prediction is simple: in a few years, almost everything will be paid. The chosen model is not new; it is television's. First, open channels full of reruns and aged content. Then, paid platforms charging to repeat the same thing with better image quality. And a background feeling: paying does not guarantee quality, it only guarantees you pay.

The parallel with television is the bet of those making the prediction, not an accomplished fact. In this logic, free content degrades to push users toward subscriptions, leaving subscriptions as the reasonable access. Those who do not pay are left, according to the most critical voices, with what remains.

More users, less variety: the mechanism

For several participants, the paradox has a technical explanation. As one summarizes, easy things become massified; difficult things remain selective. In the words of another, a desktop operating system dominates almost the entire computing park, while free alternatives stay in a corner. Applied to content, the effect would be identical: short and automatic formats capture attention and displace what requires effort.

Another more subtle effect persists, always according to this reading. When few used the network, there were almost as many ways of thinking as connected people. Now that everyone uses it, thought becomes uniform, and the same things are criticized in the same way. The larger the audience for something, the more a single version of that thing imposes itself.

Forums remain, with decreasing traffic, and messaging tools serve as the last refuge for long conversations. Little else.

If variety depends on community size, and every large community tends toward uniformity, is there any scale at which the internet can return to resembling what it once was?