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Surprising no one, new research says AI Overviews cause massive drop in search clicks
(arstechnica.com)
this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2025
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Technology
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The internet was never designed to exist in a capitalist hellscape. It was designed for the free sharing of information by people putting random servers on the network.
Technically it was invented by Xerox then developed for the military. The 1990s version of the internet was more akin to what you described but I wouldn't say it was designed with that in mind.
In a sense it very much was. Al Gore as a young congressperson was shown the military version (Arpanet) and then pushed a series of bills that expanded this to the civilian world and created what became knows as the Internet. His explicit goal was to create an "Information Superhighway" that would allow for the free exchange of - wait for it - information. This phrase (popularized by Gore but probably not originated by him) was so well-known in the '90s that it became a standard joke format: "{fill in the blank} Superhighway" was sure to get a laugh.
Incidentally, during the 2000 presidential election cycle, Gore gave an interview where he said he "took the initiative in creating the Internet", which was a perfectly true and reasonable statement for him to make. In fact, all he was doing was emphasizing an achievement that he was already well-known for. Months later, Bush advisor Karl Rove found this quote and mangled it into the "Al Gore claims he invented the Internet!" bullshit that so many people still think was real.
I think you're both right, but one of you is talking about the internet, and the other is talking about the world wide web. Both technologies were intended to facilitate ease of access of information, which is incompatible with robber baronism.