CD sales have increased for the first time in 20 years. It's not much, but does that still tell us something? The 24-hour outage of the TikTok platform in early January has permanently cemented distrust of the mainstream platforms among creators and users. Content creators, in particular, whose livelihoods depend on them, are naturally considering how to protect themselves in the long term.
Elizabeth Gilbert, author of the novel "Eat, Pray, Love," spoke enthusiastically about her newsletter on Substack in an interview last year. She says she no longer feels comfortable on social media, feels vulnerable, and believes the platforms are destroying democracy. However, she missed being able to communicate with her readers. Her newsletter now allows her to do so again without hate comments.
The mood is shifting: from tech optimism to tech exhaustion
The "Dead Internet Theory" describes dead platforms with automatically generated content, where only bots communicate with each other. Originally a conspiracy theory that gave the internet a death certificate in 2016, it is now frequently used to describe users withdrawing from platforms due to doomscrolling, hate speech, spam, and AI. In other words, it's seen as an inevitable consequence of platform designs that are exclusively aligned with capitalist interests.
Cory Doctorow calls this phenomenon "enshittification." The term describes the life cycle of digital platforms that initially focus on the user experience. However, quality eventually declines due to a shift toward monetization and profit maximization. This ultimately leads to user dissatisfaction and the decline of the platform.
Nostalgia and a return to fun instead of high tech
More and more people no longer want to rely on platforms and are looking for a decentralized internet. Newsletters and blog articles offer us community, independent learning, and creativity. On the other hand, offline media is back in vogue, replacing endless swiping and scrolling and offering us nostalgia, control, ownership, and slow media. Even if the trend hasn't yet reached the mainstream, it gives us a glimpse of what might be coming.