This is actually happening now

https://theonion.com/google-announces-plan-to-destroy-all-information-it-can-1819567986/

In Yesterday's IO Keynote Google declared war on the remnants of the Web.

While they packaged it as a lot of "AI" talk what their whole approach of decontextualizing information, of taking away links to sources and instead producing some LLM generated response means is that they want to establish a new abstraction layer on the web. Where Zuckerberg with his Metaverse failed Google is starting the next attack: Your website, your work no longer matters.

Well it matters as (unpaid) raw material for their synthetic text extruders but not as cultural artifact you can share with others.

This is a literal revolution but one against the participatory web, against us: The goal is to take away the web and guide people into Google's abstraction on top of it. An abstraction they control and moderate. It's about monopolizing access to information.

If you care about the web, about people's ability to participate in it as more than mere passive consumers, this needs to be taken seriously. De-Googlifying your mental apparatus becomes more urgent today. Find other search engines, don't use their browser. Or wake up in a slopified AOL kind of environment.

RE: https://mastodon.social/@AlSweigart/116602626276300598

I really want to stress that copyright infringement is a civil infraction unless you pass the specific tests set out in US law that make it a criminal infraction (>$1000 retail value worth of infringement). I am not a lawyer but it seems clear to me that every frontier model provider should have its models seized (as they are derivative works) and all their executives should spend a year in jail https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/506

📝 As has been observed, Apple’s own app icons (displayed reverse chronologically) look like someone getting really good at icon design.

And as Apple goes, so goes the entire macOS platform.

https://blog.jim-nielsen.com/2026/rotten-macos-icon-design/