dailynewsnblog
Not “unmarketable” as in I’m above it all. Unmarketable as in: I miss when I could exist online without being instantly processed into a consumer-shaped can. I miss when I could click on something without immediately being treated like an opportunity.
Because that’s what the internet is now; it’s a machine built to extract value from your attention, identify you, and then squeeze you until you turn into something profitable.
A login.
An email.
A subscription.
A “user.”
A person is not enough anymore. You need to be inventory.
Remember when curiosity used to be free? I used to research random things the way you used to wander in bookstores; no goal, no productivity agenda, just curiosity. I’d open one tab because I wanted to find out about something oddly specific, and suddenly I’m reading about moss, mushrooms, shipwrecks, the history of buttons, the different kinds of moths, whatever. And two hours later I’d have twenty tabs open and a brain full of fun facts.
I’d stumble into someone’s blog from 2004 where they wrote 2,000 words about a niche obsession. Or find a forum thread where an actual human being answered a question with enthusiasm and a weird amount of detail because they genuinely cared.
It wasn’t polished. It wasn’t optimized. It sure as hell wasn’t trying to sell me a course.
It was just…surfing the world wide web.
Now, that feeling is rare. Not because curiosity declined, but because discovery is no longer the goal of the modern web. Now almost everything has a bouncer (paywall!!!). Just try to read anything on the internet now. You click a link and immediately you’re slapped in the face with demands:
Accept cookies. Disable ad blocker. Create an account. Sign in with Google. Download the app. Prove you’re not a robot. Let us track you. And will you please, for the love of god, download the app?
And it’s not subtle, either. It’s fucking aggressive. It’s like every website is shaking you by the shoulders going:
HEY. HEY. BEFORE YOU READ THIS PARAGRAPH, CAN WE OWN A LITTLE BIT OF YOU?
It’s exhausting.
It turns the internet from a place you visit into a place you enter under surveillance, even when no one’s explicitly watching. The modern internet doesn’t want to welcome you. It wants to audit you. You’re not a visitor anymore. You are a product.
And honestly, this is the part that makes me angriest: it didn’t have to be like this.
Somewhere along the line, the internet stopped being a public space. Every site is now designed like a funnel. Everything is a conversion opportunity. Nothing is allowed to just exist without being monetized.
A person who just reads an article and leaves is not valuable.
A person who gives their email is valuable. A person who logs in is valuable. A person who can be tracked, categorized, and retargeted for the next six months is extremely valuable. They want you because you are raw material.
And the second you feel that, it poisons everything. Because curiosity is delicate. Curiosity needs softness. Curiosity needs the freedom to wander. It does not survive under surveillance.
And honestly, in my opinion, the internet got optimized to death.
The old web felt like a city. You could turn down a random alley and find a weird little shop. You could get lost and discover something beautiful by accident. You could end up in a tiny shop you didn’t know existed or sit on a bench and people-watch.
Now it’s a mall. Every path leads past a store. Every store wants something from you. Even the “public” space is engineered to keep you moving toward purchase.
Cookie banners. Newsletter popups. Autoplay videos screaming at you. Chat widgets bouncing in the corner. It’s the digital equivalent of someone stepping in front of you every thirty seconds going “HI! QUICK QUESTION!”
You close one popup and another one spawns like you’re fighting a hydra made of marketing. Half the internet feels like it was designed by someone who hates human beings. And then they wonder why nobody “surfs the internet” anymore.
And I know I have written about this enough times but I feel like I should say this again: Scrolling isn’t surfing. It’s captivity
People say the internet changed because of attention spans, like this is some moral failure. Like we all just got dumber and now we can’t focus.
No. The internet changed because it was rebuilt around feeds.
Feeds are not exploration. Feeds are containment. Feeds are control. Feeds are a slot machine that never pays out in cash, only in dopamine-shaped disappointment. Endless scrolling hallways where the next thing is chosen for you by an algorithm that’s optimized for one thing: keeping you there.
Surfing was active. You chose directions. You followed weird links. You made your own path.
Scrolling is passive. You get fed. You get stuck. You exit feeling gross and mentally exhausted.
When scrolling, you don’t wander into someone’s weird little page by accident. You don’t stumble upon a personal blog because you got curious and followed five links. You get served a version of “interesting” that has been cleaned, packaged, optimised, is PR trained and trying to sell you something.
And yeah I’ll admit, part of what I miss is anonymity. And no, I don’t mean anonymity as in being a horrible person on the internet with no consequences. I mean anonymity as in:
Being unobserved.
Being unprofiled.
Being able to move through the internet without everything trying to name you, track you, and shove you into a segment. There’s a specific freedom in being unmarketable.
I miss being allowed to just look at things.
I miss being able to learn without being turned into a “lead.”
I miss when the internet didn’t demand I become legible.
Because that’s what marketing does: it makes you legible. It takes all your messy human complexity and crushes it into categories that can be bought and sold.
And it’s fucking dehumanizing.
Honestly, I think that’s why I kinda want to blog about this at all. Maybe blogging is a small act of revenge. Because blogging is one of the last parts of the internet that still feels like you’re making a place
Not a profile. Not a brand. Not a “creator account.”
A page. A corner where you can write something because you mean it, and someone else can find it without having to sign away their soul.
I want an internet where being unmarketable is still possible. Where curiosity isn’t punished. Where a link doesn’t come with a trap.
So yeah, I miss surfing the internet.
And I’m not just being nostalgic.
I am fucking pissed off.
Because we didn’t lose something inevitable, we lost something valuable, and a bunch of companies sold it for parts.
(Picture Credit: laurar:tebas on Pinterest https://pin.it/r6Xljj2MX)
