Remember when the internet felt like it was made by actual people? Now search engines, social media, streaming services and even personal recommendations can feel like one enormous commercial.

JP looks at how online advertising, influencer marketing, engagement algorithms and AI-generated content have blurred the line between real human expression and something designed to sell, provoke or keep us scrolling. From Google Search and Meta to Netflix’s ad-supported streaming, we follow the money behind the modern attention economy—and ask whether Big Tech deliberately pushed the weird, creative, human internet aside.

Is the internet still a community, or has it become a digital shopping mall? What part of the older internet do you miss most?

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