The Walled Gardens

A lot of people are not aware of what are walled gardens of Internet so let me first address that. There was a time in the history of Internet where just logging on to Internet was like stepping into a dense tropical forest where you could go anywhere and get lost in it. Today that is not the case anymore. Don't get me wrong that forest still exist but nobody ventures out in it at least not willingly. Instead everyone chooses to stay in make believe walled gardens. These are modelled after the original forest but could never compare with it. I'm talking about YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Netflix, etc,.

When was the last time you went in search of something on open Internet? Your work related queries don't count. Whatever we are viewing in these walled gardens is basically being fed to us via the feed. The feed is not just your social media or news feed, it's also the movies and shows you stream, the products you buy. Recommendations never stop in all these walled gardens.

Your feed is carefully curated "For you" by thousands of algorithms who continuously try to figure out what you like, dislike in order to maximise the engagement with the platform and keep you captive in these walled gardens. All this to maximise revenue of massive corporations at the cost of an individual's time here on Earth.

There was a time we used to get bored. It's said that boredom is necessary to do any sort of creative work. We need lots of creative solutions for our global problems. So get bored, venture out on open Internet, use search instead of feeds. Who knows what you may find?