CLICK, SCROLL, REPEAT How We Became the Product

AI, Social Media, and the Illusion of Choice - The Dead Web –

From Free Space to Monetized Matrix

The internet wasn’t shut down. It was dismantled, piece by piece. What began as a space of freedom is now a grid: measured, optimized, squeezed dry down to the last line of code. Freedom? A thing of the past. Today: Terms of service, algorithms, subscriptions. What once sparked curiosity now triggers consent popups and reach boosters. To participate, you pay – with data, attention, identity. And we comply. Out of habit, resignation, because exclusion is the only alternative.

AI – A Beacon of Hope That Has Already Taken Over

Artificial intelligence – once a synonym for progress and relief – has become the perfect feeding system. It’s not just tech firms and algorithms doing the feeding: industries, bots, platforms, and above all, we ourselves deliver the substance day after day – out of pressure, convenience, fear of missing out. Where there’s social media, there’s AI. Where there’s online shopping, there’s AI. Every workspace, every private domain: data, movements, preferences. Everything is fed in. Everything is exploited.

AI is still a tool – but already on its way to becoming a weapon. Not because it explodes, but because it consumes everything we give it. And we are the ones who feed it – willingly, compulsively, routinely.

Social Media – Once Social, Now Exploitation on Click

Social networks used to promise genuine exchange. Today, they’ve become extraction machines. Humans are broken down into pixels, bits, behavioral units. Every scroll a data point. Every like a profile fragment. Every pause triggers an alert: attention might slip, the data stream might dry up.

There’s nothing social left. It’s analysis, prediction, exploitation. And while we cling to our screens, our reality shrinks to whatever social media spits out. The world out there? Filtered. The world in here? A formatted façade.

The Software Trap – Dependency in a Bundle

Once: One solution, one goal. Now: Three tools, four add-ons, a bag full of upgrades – all mandatory, including the illusion of choice. You want to do something? Sure. Just bring your app, your plugin, your cloud access (and your soul 😈), your visibility boost, and PayPal for reach.

Every click costs. Not just money – but time, attention, autonomy. It’s like a pay-to-play game, but you pay with everything you have. And the price rises daily.

Influencers & Content – The New Matrix of Uniform Storytellers

What used to be divided between cinema, television, and newspapers now happens in one box: Social media as stage, platforms as studios, algorithms as directors, influencers as paid actors.

The new diversity? A massive cast for the same old script. Ongoing, on demand, for everyone. Creativity is yesterday’s news.

Every identity becomes a target group, every dream a product. What looks like variety is endless repetition in service of the market. Freedom? Just the choice between ten versions of the same thing. Staging instead of insight. Everyone becomes a star. Me too – only no one’s coming to get me out.

How much cooking content does one recipe need? How many lipstick reviews with the same affiliate link? Because partners should stay partners – and the review is just a trick without a punch. How often have you seen the same content without noticing?

What the Web Really Does to Us

It’s no accident that we go along with it all. The web has learned not just to entertain us, but to shape us. Every click a small adjustment, every like a reward in the digital Pavlov lab.

We’re no longer users. We’re products in self-circulation. We evaluate ourselves, chase the feeling of missing out if we don’t deliver.

The web fillets our identity and throws it on the market. What’s left of you when every interest, every weakness, every longing becomes a data point in a profile, a cluster, a target group? What’s left of you when you stop producing?

Social connection – once built on chance, mistakes, and real encounters – is now an algorithm: calculable, controllable, retrievable. We call it connection, but it’s isolation. We call it freedom, but it’s coerced decision-making.

Maybe the web isn’t dead. Maybe it’s just become what we needed it to be – out of fear of the real world: An endless hall of mirrors where we lose ourselves – until we forget we were once more than a login and a count of collected likes.

Conclusion – From a Space of Freedom to a Capitalist Playground

What began as revolution and possibility has become an overloaded space of monetization. The internet was once free, creative, open – a place to grow, access knowledge, exchange ideas, spark innovation. Today, it’s a playground for capitalism in its purest form: Without social media, nothing moves. Every click is becoming a paid click. Every action a step deeper into dependency.

The system has become a 24/7 binding agent that simulates freedom while forging ever tighter chains – regulation, control, coercion, wherever you click. From the idea of relief and liberation to total dependence, step by step, under a flood of imposed mechanisms.

The web inflates – bigger, louder, emptier. What began as joyful ARPANET experimentation ends as a live experiment on the open brain.

*Whether we ever end the protocol –

is up to us.*