Aug 7, 2026 09:42 PM
(This post was last modified: Aug 7, 2026 09:56 PM by C C.)
What Was the Internet?
https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/wh...-internet/
EXCERPT: With the rise of AI, however, some new mood seems discernible, at least around the edges: the elegiac. A lot of the web is being swept away.
In May, Google overhauled its iconic search box for the first time since 2001, signaling its all-in on the “intelligence age.” As chatbots hallucinate and hide their sources, search results become harder to browse, and digital life becomes ever more atomized, online access to information looks more imperiled than ever.
Wikipedia has managed to survive—a miraculous exception that proves the rule—but it’s staring down new threats.
Boston Review has been online since 1995, but our search engine traffic is falling, like everyone else’s. If work is published on the net and no one can navigate to it, does it leave a trace?
In other words, is this the end of the web itself? And if so, is some kind of eulogy in order?
“Just as I’d hoped, [the web] has enabled a flourishing of human creativity and self-expression,” Berners-Lee writes in his recent memoir, This Is for Everyone. But “to ensure the web agents serve people—not corporate profits, not governments, not themselves, but people—it’s critical that we develop systems today that put the human first.”
We asked five humans who’ve been paying attention what to make of this moment. Read on for their reflections: about how the web used to work and what it used to feel like, the strange and sorry thing it’s become, and the good that’s worth remembering when so much of what we love is dying, or already long gone... (MORE - details)
COVERED:
“Infrastructural Imperialism”
by Siva Vaidhyanathan
“The Scale’s the Thing”
by Avery Dame-Griff
“Net Positives”
by Joanna Walsh
“That Obscure Object, Desire”
by Chad Wellmon
“Managed Decline”
by Cory Doctorow
https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/wh...-internet/
EXCERPT: With the rise of AI, however, some new mood seems discernible, at least around the edges: the elegiac. A lot of the web is being swept away.
In May, Google overhauled its iconic search box for the first time since 2001, signaling its all-in on the “intelligence age.” As chatbots hallucinate and hide their sources, search results become harder to browse, and digital life becomes ever more atomized, online access to information looks more imperiled than ever.
Wikipedia has managed to survive—a miraculous exception that proves the rule—but it’s staring down new threats.
Boston Review has been online since 1995, but our search engine traffic is falling, like everyone else’s. If work is published on the net and no one can navigate to it, does it leave a trace?
In other words, is this the end of the web itself? And if so, is some kind of eulogy in order?
“Just as I’d hoped, [the web] has enabled a flourishing of human creativity and self-expression,” Berners-Lee writes in his recent memoir, This Is for Everyone. But “to ensure the web agents serve people—not corporate profits, not governments, not themselves, but people—it’s critical that we develop systems today that put the human first.”
We asked five humans who’ve been paying attention what to make of this moment. Read on for their reflections: about how the web used to work and what it used to feel like, the strange and sorry thing it’s become, and the good that’s worth remembering when so much of what we love is dying, or already long gone... (MORE - details)
COVERED:
“Infrastructural Imperialism”
by Siva Vaidhyanathan
“The Scale’s the Thing”
by Avery Dame-Griff
“Net Positives”
by Joanna Walsh
“That Obscure Object, Desire”
by Chad Wellmon
“Managed Decline”
by Cory Doctorow