The Spastic Internet

I read recently that the Internet has lost about half of its utility, largely because the costs of security keep intruding upon the gains in utility. I should add also that the massive amount of advertising is choking the system. I sometimes cannot look at some sites, like The Daily Beast, or Huffington or MSN without getting into a paralysis in which I am confronted by a debugging script I must follow to end the blockage.

The Internet, combined with the marvels of computerized writing, editing, accounting, communications, and sorting, made life easier, especially for a writer. Not long ago I could complete and edit a manuscript, easily incorporate my revisions, and send it off to my editors. The editorial interchange could also be done online, and I would incorporate my editors' alterations and corrections, and follow their suggestions, and return my product as an edited manuscript ready for production. And of course emails along the way would inform me of deadlines, or the need for jacket copy, or remainder opportunities, etc.

All that has changed. The internet is now so sclerotic that I cannot count on reaching a site, or bringing up the material I wish to see, or mailing my responses. There are long pauses, rejections, demands for passwords I didn't know existed, etc., which sometimes force me to call my provider for help, or hire an expert to come to my house and untangle my computer.

In short, the internet is becoming less useful. It is still vital, and far from dying, but security and advertising have all but paralyzed it. All those advertising people who sit around thinking up click-bait stories are ultimately destroying an entire medium, and their efforts will bring them less and less return. Who wants to click on something that turns out not to be journalism at all, but an excuse to run a new ad every few seconds?

I recently upgraded my computer to Windows 10, which is mostly likable, but it adds layers of opening screens and decision-making to the mix, and I can find no way to escape them. In short, Microsoft is just as invasive as the amassed advertisers eager to batter my privacy any way they can manage.

So dealing with the internet is increasingly self-defeating, and I am expecting to return to using my computer as a typewriter, and sending printed manuscripts by mail to my publishers, if that is what it takes to deal with a spastic, sclerotic medium ruined by greed. What was once cheap is expensive. The last time I needed to get tech help, because I could not connect to the Internet, the bill was ninety dollars.

The question is not whether the security and advertising troubles will kill the value of the Internet, but only how fast, and when. Meanwhile I am enjoying sending hand-written letters to friends and colleagues.

Greed defeats itself, just as greed and malice are destroying the Internet.