Going on the internet used to be the best part of my day.

No, seriously. The internet was still a place where like-minded people could congregate and trade discussions and ideas that were rare to come across in person. The belief that the internet could be the great democratic equaliser still naively hung in the air.

The early internet felt vast, an endless sprawl of personal websites, niche message boards, blogs, and experimental digital spaces. It did not feel like the simple tool it was, but rather an expanding landscape that would lead into interesting and unexpected corners. It encouraged and rewarded curiosity, which the modern web actively attempts to discourage.

Now, most of our conversations in person mirror the topics of the internet, forming a large part of our discourse, but it is all designed to make us angry, anxious, and consumed with dread.

And instead of the internet helping us to find a common consensus across country, culture, and creed, it is now more likely to be used as a weapon of destabilisation. The internet has become too powerful in the material world, and we have allowed that power to be concentrated in all the wrong, harmful places.

This extreme metal album blew up over a weekend – now it's accused of being AI

After the dot-com market........

© Herald Scotland