No, on several levels.:
1. Who's to say the internet is "ruined"? What's the frame of reference that determined the apotheosis of what the internet was? Who died and made them king?
2. On a literal level, the internet is going as strong as ever. It is no longer optional, but essential. Access to the internet is a human right as far as I'm concerned. Is that "ruined" in any sense of the word?
3. The internet is not a singular body, but a protocol. The internet in China is very different from the internet in the US, for example. There are ways to make them more similar, but you have walled gardens and you have the open web, you have the dark web and you have i2p and onionspace and web3. Which internet is getting ruined? Can it get ruined?
4. You don't need to use Google. I paid for Kagi as my main search engine. Yes, paid. Guess what, it works great, especially when Google results became shit. I can still use Google, but 99% of the time I don't need to. I use Google for other stuff - Google sheets is convenient, but not exclusively. Google got to where it is because it had a good product. Remember whe neveryone used Yahoo? Or Myspace? Same deal. Google is not the internet. Empires fall. You can use Bing, Baidu, DDG, Yandex if you want. Sometimes they even give out better results. In the end, t's a choice that you're making, and you are free to choose not to engage. Just as not voting is also a political act, not using a service is in itself an act of protest. Google haven't raided my house and put me in prison yet, so I don't think they're even what you need to worry about.
5. What you do need to worry about is the stupid government narrative that the internet needs to be more censored or controlled. Its implication is that we're all idiots that can't tell what's true and what isn't. Some people might, and some people are better at discerning the truth than others. But the government is hardly a neutral arbiter. Electioneering and governance are two separate and unrelated skills. All governments have agendas. Do you a man pushing 80 who vigorously fought the war on drugs to be in charge of what is true or not? Do you want a man who couldn't make money running a casino and doesn't now how wind (in the hurricane-nuking instance) or exchanging goods and services for cash (China does not owe us unless you think that if you go to Walmart and pay $5 for batteries, they owe you $5 and you keep the batteries). These are the people who think that the internet is ruined. These are also people who don't have a frame of reference and don't know the least bit of what they're talking about. At least in the US, there's a measure of protection by virtue of the 1st Amendment. Thankfully we wrote that down. In the UK, where whatever the commons pass is constitutional, well, not having checks and balances is extremely problematic. Just because you have elective kingship doesn't mean that the king is a good thing to have. It only gets worse from there.
We have an organic internet that, at least in places, is more or less at a point as close to what a consensus view of the internet as it can be, which is full of arguments and factions and do-gooders and criminals. That is also what society is like. It will change as culture changes and culture is never a static point. You may not like where it's going, but you can be the change you want see. Whether Gandhi said that or not, it remains true. It's certainly more helpful than the talking heads talking about stuff they have zero clue about.
edit: The Verge deleted a long critique I wrote about Taylor Lorez's book that purports to be a history of the internet but in fact covers a very small and very particular sliver of the internet. I cited my sources, I read the book, and if their mods can't handle a critique that refutes her view point by point that is backed by actual documented sources in the wayback machine, well, the only thing that separates a lot of their "reporting" from propaganda is that you don't need to read the Verge, but in an authoritarian state you can't avoid propaganda. I don't know Taylor Lorenz, but she's a published author and she made some interesting points in the book, and certainly does not need some techblog to white knight her. But even that isn't a new critique, people have been making this argument since at least 2001. Don't project your own insecurities to be universal and don't ride in helping someone who needs no help are basic rules that one should learn in life, and so, I give little credence to at least the moderation team on the Verge. There's much better stuff on Substack.
