In Fall 2025, the thought occurred to me to leave the web. It just has become too agonizing to use. Wouldn't our lives be so much richer if the web were done away with? Thus I submit to you: we abolish the web, permanently!
But really, I think I can just leave it.
AI slop
Paywalls and "not-paywalls" (requiring an email to view content)
SEO
CTAs
CPU overload (genius.com comes to mind)
Ads (a lot of ads are actually OK, as ads have a long and storied history of funding publications)
Tracking of all kinds
Mouse tracking on pages themselves
Eye-tracking (if video is turned on)
Tracking you across the web
Disabling audio that happens to be playing (Pitchfork, of all sites, would do that)
Shifting content, aka content jumping
Malware (though I don't encounter that much)
Slow web apps (even just content-based websites)
Pop-ups
Subscribe to my newsletter
Cookie consent forms
Allow notifications
Chat
Login prompts
"Use the app instead"
After logging in, requests to upgrade subscription (New York Times)
Menus that take over the entire screen when you accidentally hover over them
Pop-up windows are more or less a thing of the past since blocking them is default browser behaviour now. This is in reference to within the websites themselves.
The deceptive patterns not listed here
Tabs
Browser tabs have become a to-do list (not a feature of the web, per se, more of a paradigm/productivity habit)
Inconsistent behaviour of links on the web itself regarding opening in a new tab
There are a number of webs now
The open web
A Secret Web (not to be confused with the dark web or the deep web)
The closed web
The cozy web (which has little to do with the World Wide Web)
Digital gardens
Overlap of any of the above
Books
Magazines
Newspapers
Movies
Meeting people IRL
Hobbies (I'm not sure which hobbies I actually have, though)
Use apps instead (embracing silos)
Just stay on the "social web"
Reviving the lost arts of conversation
Scrimshaw
I wouldn't leave the Internet. I still would use messaging of all kinds, and would want to sync data between devices, stream movies and music, download ebooks, etc.
The work needed to say on a web that is not infuriating means:
Using ad and monitoring/spying blockers (constant vigilence)
Extensions
Stylus to hide distracting elements (also, the feature on Safari for iOS) or to create space for ads so that content doesn't jump
Disabling tracking links, links in new tabs, etc.
Auto-"consenting" cookie consent forms (more like auto-declining non-essential cookies)
It's infuriating that I have to install software to make other software simpler.
RSS aggregation (that has its own downsides)
VPN (costs money, requires technical know-how, trust)
The layers of caching on the web and the infrastructure needed to host it is astounding.
By the way I'm aware of the irony of using the web in order to decry it, so don't bother pointing that out.