Better Internet, Less Trust Issues

There are some things I miss. The quiet. The waiting.

The joy of stumbling across someone’s weird little webpage, lovingly made in Notepad, full of animated GIFs, comic sans, and soul. The kind of page that said, “I don’t know who you are, but here’s a piece of me anyway.”

I miss when the internet felt like a backyard, not a strip mall.

That’s not to say everything’s broken. We’ve built incredible things. Video calls that cross oceans. Voices that were once silenced now broadcast to millions. Ridiculously specific Reddit threads that somehow know more about your 2008 dishwasher than the manual ever did. I’m grateful for that. But also: something’s off.

The internet got really good at giving us what we want—and in the process, maybe too good at shaping what we want in the first place.

Somewhere along the way, we stopped noticing the difference between what’s for us and what’s just targeted at us. We started accepting ads as answers. Notifications as needs. Content as conversation. And now, it’s normal to spend an hour scrolling, then blink and ask: “Wait… what just happened?”

It’s not just a tech problem. It’s a relationship problem. Because the truth is, we’re in a relationship with the internet. And like any relationship, it reflects what we tolerate, what we nurture, what we ignore. Sometimes we lead. Sometimes we just… react.

And when we don’t pay attention, we end up chasing a feeling—of being seen, entertained, connected—without realizing that the thing we’re chasing is the same thing keeping us stuck.

We might can change how we show up.

The better internet isn’t out there waiting to be discovered. It’s made one decision at a time. By individuals, like you and me, asking simple but slightly uncomfortable questions. Why am I seeing this? What’s this website trying to get me to do? Do I actually want this thing, or did the internet convince me I should?

These questions aren’t revolutionary at all. They’re the digital equivalent of “Do I really need to text that person right now?” (Spoiler: You probably don’t.) They’re small moments of clarity in a very noisy room. And when enough of us start asking them, things shift. Not all at once. Not dramatically. But quietly, in the way good things usually do.

A better internet isn’t just faster or sleeker. It’s more intentional. It makes room for nuance. It respects your time. It doesn’t just work well—it feels good to use. It invites you in, not just to buy, but to belong.

This isn’t about nostalgia for the good old days. We don’t need to go back to dial-up and blinking text. Unless you’re into that, in which case I feel you! It’s about bringing back the spirit of the old internet. Curious, weird, wholesome.

Sometime soon, I’ll be publishing something new. It’s called Better Internet. It’ll be a series of essays, thoughts, digital crumbs. Less of a manifesto, more of a conversation. Think a scrapbook of what the internet was, and what it might still become.

It’s not finished yet. But then again, neither is the internet.