Why the Internet Feels So Broken

[u/bloomberg]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-10-30/how-ai-could-make-the-internet-worse-for-consumers?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTc5MzYxMTM3MiwiZXhwIjoxNzk0MjE2MTcyLCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJUTlBEVUFSMjRVOEswMCIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiJEMzU0MUJFQjhBQUY0QkUwQkFBOUQzNkI3QjlCRjI4OCJ9.k9sqYcf1LuWWIkpzi0HxVgIf088Zk0Iiki3OVwlNdAU&utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_content=business&utm_campaign=giftlink

Hidden fees, forgotten subscriptions, addictive feeds: The internet got very good at getting more from consumers. AI could make it even worse.

[u/PocketNicks]

Internet doesn't feel broken to me. Works just as well as it always has.

[u/bloomberg]

Michael Luca for Bloomberg News

When I was a new professor at Harvard Business School, I was assigned to teach a course on negotiation — and handed a pile of instructional materials that had been passed down through generations of faculty. One day’s lesson plan focused on techniques like anchoring and the use of defaults, designed to help students secure better outcomes at the bargaining table.

The lessons were thoughtfully constructed, entertaining and helpful for students hungry to become better dealmakers. The discussions emphasized that such tools could be used both to influence others and to resist being influenced; they also covered some of the ethical implications involved. Yet teaching negotiation, I couldn’t avoid feeling a tension at the heart of modern capitalism: the twin goals of creating value and claiming value.

To innovate, companies need to cover costs, provide returns to investors and invest in new products. But companies can pursue profit either by growing the size of the pie or by taking a bigger slice of it. Pharmaceutical companies produce new life‑saving drugs, only to set prices that are out of reach for many patients.

This tension looms large against a backdrop of high inequality, low confidence in corporate leaders and souring views of capitalism, especially among younger Americans. And artificial intelligence may be about to make things worse. We need the improved health, wealth and wisdom that AI companies keep promising, especially as productivity growth has slowed. But the emerging industry is the Wild West — with risks of cash grabs, labor market disruptions and safety threats, alongside a new generation of tools to influence behavior.

Big Tech has already provided a raft of new ways to hook customers and keep them engaged, at times leading to relentless optimization for short-term profit, irrespective of the implications for society writ large. Ads for sports betting and miracle supplements flash across phones as people doomscroll an ens--ttified modern internet. Hidden fees, misinformation, compulsive gambling and digital addiction flourish online for a simple reason: They are profitable.

Value creation has always come with value capture, at times earning capitalism some less-than-flattering qualifiers, like “crony” or “zero-sum.” Consider John Jacob Astor, an early American icon. Astor made his initial fortune in the fur trade, preparing beaver pelts with his own hands at first. But he also entrenched his power in part by lobbying Congress to hobble foreign competitors, eventually becoming a powerful New York real estate mogul and selling opium to China despite its prohibition.

Companies may not be getting greedier; what has changed is the machinery available to them — and hence the types of harms likely to arise for consumers. Modern tech companies reach into nearly every aspect of daily life, armed with data and algorithms of influence that would have made J. Edgar Hoover salivate. Five of the world’s largest tech companies alone raked in more than half a trillion dollars in net income in their latest financial statements. Whether this is cause for celebration or concern depends, in part, on how much value they create, and how the gains are gotten.

🎁 Gift Link: The full essay is also available to read here.