AI versus Marshy - Is the Web Before This the Good Old Days?

I’ve been writing about the changing landscape of the web in my newsletter, and I wanted to take a step back and reflect on how far we’ve come. As someone who’s been around the online block a few times, I’ve seen some amazing things - and some not-so-amazing things. Let’s take a look at what’s been happening, and where we might be headed. I remember starting an OpenDiary. I’d pour all my teen angst into its online pages. It was cringe central but there was a little community around it, and that’s how my content writing journey started. The web was a weird and wonderful place where you could stumble upon anything. Mine were IRC chat rooms, dance music forums, and I even found an erotic hypnotist in New York (for another time). Tanay’s Substack writes about AI and the decline of the open web . With all this content getting vacuumed up by AI and then getting remixed and generated, the incentives for “putting it out there” are falling away. The newsletter does a great job of summarising four key trends: mobile and login walls, moving from forums to “private” communities, more walled gardens, and content becoming less and less valuable because it’s getting generated. Have you noticed anything ? I certainly have. The best online conversations I have are in private Slack and WhatsApp channels. It could have been so good. As I’ve said in the past, it’s not really the present that we have to be concerned about or the next 1-3 years. Casting further forward I wonder what happens to creativity that’s far more valuable than online words - for example Meta has just announced AudioCraft - a generative AI for music. Will we all be listening to individualised AI jamz and where does it end? Originally appeared in newsletter : AI versus Marshy #7: women doing AI for good, all of the texts, + upcoming webinar