1. To look something up quickly and then spend twenty minutes fact-checking the AI summary, only to find out that it was absolutely wrong.
2. To search for directions and two hours later end up with five items in your Amazon cart.
3. To receive results as ten-second videos that present a sponsored product as the only possible answer to your question.
4. To attempt to look up basic information about someone you recently met, you have to go through a sequence of “background check” sites, each showing a dramatic loading bar while it pretends to search. After fifteen minutes, it subtly suggests that criminal records may have been found, and you can view them now in exchange for a modest $24.95 monthly subscription.
5. To ask the internet for knowledge and receive a series of articles that mostly remind you what your question was, then repeat the same three facts you already knew, padded out with more ad space than information.
6. To start typing a weird question and stop halfway through because you don’t want the algorithm to decide this is who you are now, and then immediately panic, knowing it probably logged it before you erased it.
7. To attempt to find useful information and instead take part in the solidification of the internet as an ad-delivery business, where you’re given no option but to be the product. While your attention is being auctioned off, the communities you once loved have become rage-bait and engagement traps, and focusing on anything longer than a few seconds feels near impossible. And you think about how different it all was: when pages loaded quickly, half the internet wasn’t locked behind paywalls, and the word “content” mostly lived inside tables. You used to defend the search engine, blaming users when they said it couldn’t find what they were looking for. Your friends called you the “Google wizard.” Now you can’t even find a simple news article you read last week, and you can’t help but feel deeply sad, realizing the internet that shaped you has been destroyed piece by piece.
8. To look for something on Reddit.
