The Internet We Deserve: How Incentives Shaped a Fractured Digital Commons

Each generation inherits a public space. Ours was the internet.

Born of idealism and sustained by engineering brilliance, the web once promised to democratize information, flatten hierarchies, and connect disparate corners of the globe. It has succeeded—spectacularly—in all three. Yet few today would call the modern internet a triumph. Instead, we navigate a digital landscape that is anxious, performative, and algorithmically divisive. The problem is not that the internet is broken. The problem is that it works exactly as designed.

The Logic of Engagement

At the heart of the matter lies a simple, durable incentive: attention. Most of the internet’s infrastructure—social media platforms, search engines, even much of the news—runs on an advertising-based revenue model. To survive, these platforms must capture and hold user attention. To thrive, they must maximize it.

This imperative has shaped every layer of the modern internet’s design. Algorithms optimize not for truth, usefulness, or even entertainment, but for engagement. And all too often, engagement becomes enragement. Content that triggers emotional intensity—especially anger and outrage—spreads further, travels faster, and retains attention longer. Nuance is a liability. Certainty, no matter how unearned, is rewarded.

Infinite scroll, autoplay videos, push notifications, trending tabs: these are not flaws, but features—designed to increase time-on-site. Even the humble “like” button, once a benign form of encouragement, now fuels a gamified attention economy in which creators tailor output to match whatever performs, regardless of substance.

The Feedback Loop

In such an environment, incentives compound. Creators learn quickly which kinds of content succeed and adapt accordingly. Outrage pays. Memes travel faster than arguments. The flattening of discourse—where a peer-reviewed study competes for attention with a viral conspiracy theory—is not an accident. It is market logic.

Meanwhile, consumers—humans, not automatons—respond to what is most stimulating. We are not individually to blame, yet collectively complicit. A user who pauses to read a nuanced post is worth less to the system than one who clicks, comments, reacts, and shares.

Over time, the platforms that best maximize engagement pull ahead, attracting more capital, more users, and more content creators. Less addictive or less optimized alternatives fall behind, even if they are healthier for public discourse.

This Is Not a Conspiracy

It is tempting to imagine that the current state of the internet is the result of moral decay, corporate greed, or political manipulation. But most of the dysfunction can be explained more simply: the system is doing what it was built to do. In fact, it is doing it well.

That does not mean the outcomes are desirable. Much of what once made the internet a place of discovery—its heterogeneity, its open protocols, its user-directed pathways—has been eclipsed by centralized platforms acting as attention brokers. We are no longer explorers; we are inventory.

Reclaiming the Digital Commons

If the problem is structural, then so too must be the solution. A better internet will not emerge from nostalgia or protest alone. It will require reimagining the incentives.

Some progress is visible. Subscription models, such as those used by Substack or independent creators, decouple revenue from virality. Decentralized platforms like Mastodon, and privacy-first tools like Signal, represent modest but meaningful alternatives. Even the growing interest in personal websites—blogs, newsletters, domain-rooted identities—suggests a renewed desire for digital autonomy.

But none of this will scale without intention. We must be willing to reward what we value. That means supporting creators who resist the engagement treadmill, investing time in spaces that prize depth over velocity, and refusing to mistake popularity for quality.

What We Incentivize, We Normalize

The internet is neither good nor bad. It is a mirror—reflecting back what we build into it. And while it may feel immovable, it remains, at its core, a human-made system. Incentives can be changed. Structures can be redesigned. But only if we stop treating the current state as inevitable.

An internet built to maximize engagement will inevitably drift toward enragement—unless we change what counts.

We did not get the internet we dreamed of. We got the one we paid for—with our clicks, our time, and our data. The next one will be shaped the same way.

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