The Case for Letting the Internet Die

In 2026, you see little of the internet worth saving. Any glimmers of community and joy, of artistic and intellectual exchange, are outweighed by turbocharged AI slop and algorithms that reward outrage. It was against this backdrop that I read technologist and Pulitzer-winning journalist John West’s new book, The Internet Will Die, and So Will You: On Learning to Live in Our Digital Age. West writes at length on what many have suspected for a good while now: platforms once seen as archives of knowledge and communication are being cannibalized by ideological warfare and basic greed. But a metaphor West often turns to in his book is compost, “rot harnessed for a purpose.” Can a decaying internet be fertilizer for something better? Maybe, if we have enough hardy, patient gardeners, we can make our digital landscape bloom once more.