$WHACKD

I've been formulating this idea for a few months at this point, but after DeSantis ran a campaign ad that used AI generated imagery to smear Trump I have been pushed over the edge. The net is already packed to the gills with bots and AI generated content and I do not think it's going to be sustainable anymore. People are rapidly losing the ability to tell what is real even with photo and video evidence. Bots are taking over social media, artificially altering public perception, and the whole thing is getting generally untrustworthy.

I also note this in my personal capitalist ventures; the internet was once a place where you could grow a business and attract a wider audience, but now I see the local scene as actually being a better way to start a business and make money, It is only going to get worse. The era of the big 5 social media platforms and the world wide web is facing hard times and likely coming to a close. I think the future of the internet will likely be centered around individual communities that vet their members instead of mass social media. Content sites like YT, Netflix, etc will probably stick around, but companies like Reddit and Facebook (deadnamed) are going to go directly down the shitter.

However I could see an open source backend, probably built off Reddit, maybe Twitter, existing as the substrate for the new era of verified user internet dialog. People would exist online primarily as a part of their local community, but communities that properly vet members could join up to create more expansive internet spaces that are capable of verifying their members. We're starting to see this happening right now as more and more subs are requiring verification to post on "controversial" threads. The beginning has begun and I don't see a whole lot of other options for humanity to overcome LLMs and AGI