I actually don't believe in "Dead internet" theory, at least not in the sense that it's all bots - internet is populated with more people than it has ever been before - the problem is "quality" or "type" of these people.
Reading comments and seeing peoples way of thinking on various semi-anonymous but still normie populated social media sites for the past year has made me understand why most people weren't taught how to read and write throught history - it wasn't just because they did not need these skills, but rather because them knowing how to read/write would be detrimental for society around them and to people that already knew how to write/read.
Average normie sharing his thoughts on public forum is like septic tank spilling out.
These people have no concept of just sharing your thoughts or exchanging information, or hell, not even just having fun in communicating with strangers - I'm not exaggerating or being dramatic, they treat all online communication, even anonymous one,
especially anonymous one the same way as navigating high school classroom popularity competition or office politics - herd clinging, incessant dick-measuring, they calculate every single comment they write from an angle of "does that make me seem cool?", not "is it true" or "does it communicate what I wanted to communicate". Bad faith arguments are a
rule with them.
Internet isn't dead, it's just an ocean of piss with turds floating about.
What's the point of never-seen before levels of engagement being possible if all you can interact with is barely sapient cattle that should be, idk, milling the grain instead of engaging in written communication?
Why bother engaging with people on social media or in online videogames or anywhere else for that matter if on average it's the same morons that I had displeasure of tumbling through public education system with? See what I'm getting at? It's filled with people but it may as well be dead.