Once upon a time, and not so long ago, there was a burgeoning digital landscape full of enthusiastic programmers, excited hobbyists, fascinated designers, and seemingly unending possibilities. This incorporeal mindscape was populated by idealistic and ambitious creations in all directions. Experimentation was rewarded, users were generally supportive, creators were excited, and the experience was exploratory and generally gratifying. It was a fun time to be online: that first decade of rapidly expanding mainstream internet.

But like the determined spread of the Sith Empire, that whimsical land has been slowly and insidiously transformed into a corporately regulated Sarlac pit of marketing, kitsch, surveillance, bullying, shaming, trolling, mob-justice, echo-chambers, and many millions of unhappy netizens wasting time at work or avoiding their families in the evening, distracted for a moment at the airport, in a car, at screens around a restaurant table, or walking down the street. While the technology and access improved, the quality of the culture has peaked, now drifting away listlessly.

So how did we get here? It’s difficult to imagine, when shackled in the Cave –er, I mean: plugged into The Matrix– that other better possibilities exist. Even now it’s a struggle to clearly remember that ecstatic time of positive internet esprit de corps before money and narcissism utterly dominated the culture. Those ancient ‘90s to early oughts before endlessly aggressive advertising, encyclopedic terms of service, incessant tracking, the constant need to register everywhere, subversive clickbait, the legions of trolls, threats of doxxing, careers ended by a single tweet, and all those untiring spam bots which attempt to plague every digital inch of it.

Difficult to explain to anyone under twenty-five who did not directly witness the foundational times. Or anyone over twenty-five who did not participate. Or to anyone right now who uses only Facebook and Amazon. That lost age has become the Old West of the internet: a brief memory before once verdant lands were dominated and overrun by exploitative business interests and ignorant bumbling settlers. You can’t go back, and there’s no museum for an experience. That early culture was ineffable and fleeting. Not unlike, say: the concept of lifetime job security, which no longer even seems plausible.

bison skulls stacked; they didn’t keep the passenger pigeon skulls

Now, of course, plenty of happy and creative people still use the internet (at least, to like, buy an appliance or a book or something) but they don’t make up most of internet culture; that majority of online participation which sets the social standards, creates the original content, and is now broadly, inescapably corralled by social media. Those who spend more than 20 hours a week actively participating online (like me) who are forced into the corporate tide, or relegated to the sluggish unknown hinterlands.