What Happens When Everything is Paywalled

Ready Player One is a fantastic book by Ernest Cline. Set in the near future, the story mainly takes place inside the OASIS – a futuristic version of the internet that is freely accessible to every human.

In the story, schoolchildren are all issued OASIS devices to freely access the vast knowledge and worlds provided online. While access is free, corporations get involved and found ways to charge people.

Those with means had better equipment, faster speeds, and an overall better experience. Those without, like the main character in the book, were stuck with default settings and a severe lack of access beyond the freely accessed worlds.

While the OASIS doesn’t exist in our reality, a digital class system exists online, and it’s quickly getting much worse.

We’re presented with the illusion of choice online: do you want ads, or do you want to pay to avoid them? Do you want to be tracked across websites for ad purposes, or do you want to pay to be anonymous? Do you want your online experience to be flooded with AI-generated brain rot, or do you want to pay for higher quality human-made creations?

This choice makes it feel like we can tailor our experience. But, in reality, the choice comes down to whether you will pay more or accept what exists. That’s not a choice at all.

Paywalls are popping up everywhere to give users this choice while helping creators escape the rapidly degrading internet. It’s a way to try and have it both ways. But, at the end of the day, it’s really more a statement of means. Can you pay for a better experience or not?

Last week, The Verge launched a partial paywall and subscription. They’re calling it a “freemium” model where most content is freely accessible to everyone and original features are paywalled. The launch article explains:

[W]e didn’t want to simply paywall the entire site — it’s a tragedy that traditional journalism is retreating behind paywalls while nonsense spreads across platforms for free.

The illusion of choice that exists online right now says accept the free nonsense or pay for quality. It’s a tragedy that those are the only options.

Class already dictates education access here in the States. The internet was meant to be a great leveler where everyone could access unlimited knowledge at their fingertips. But, just like in Ready Player One, greed got in the way, and the internet became heavily monetized.

Corporate internet and social platforms convinced us that the attention economy was what we wanted. They addicted us to algorithmic feeds so they could learn everything about us to sell ads they knew we’d click on. We weren’t learning or experiencing anything new; we were being suckered into consumerism. And the cost? Our individuality and personal creativity.

Thankfully, we’re pushing back and helping to build a better internet. Except that better internet can either be free or high-quality. We currently can’t have both, and it absolutely sucks.

I don’t know the solution, but I have hope that people much smarter than me will figure it out. This isn’t just Pollyanna hope. It’s what Joan Westenberg calls Fuck You Optimism:

What we need is a radical, rebellious, fuck you optimism. The kind that spits in the face of despair and keeps moving forward anyway, middle finger raised and teeth bared.

There are awesome people like like Joan who have their teeth bared and their middle fingers raised. They’re advocating for and designing a better internet for everyone.

People like Molly White, who literally gave the talk on fighting for the web. Or people like Anil Dash, who is actively welcoming the internet’s return to its roots.

As these people spit in the face of despair and work to build a better internet, and as publishers like The Verge discover how to pay writers while also offering free access, I know a better internet is possible. One that is not beholden to corporate sites and ad revenue. One that doesn’t milk us for data to sell us things we don’t need.

The illusion of choice is what we have right now, but it is not what we will have forever.