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What the Internet Does to Writers Borders on Criminal
The online world is a cruel taskmaster and there’s no relief in sight
You’d think from all the shouting and hand-waving out there that generative AI was the dreaded plague that’s about to wipe out writers and their profession.
But from where I sit, AI is merely the MacGuffin in an older, bigger story about what’s really afflicting writers.
To borrow from our friend James Carville, “It’s the Internet, stupid.”
If I had to finger one single force, or force-multiplier, that is responsible for destroying writers’ egos, dashing the hopes of aspiring novelists, and throwing legions of scribblers into low-level depression if not full-blown existential despair, it would be that thing we call the Internet.
Not the vice-like consolidation of power in the hands of a few publishers.
Not the stifling fall-out from political correctness that makes some writers, and some subjects, feel taboo.
No, it’s the good ol’ Internet. And it’s coming at us in two directions, beseeching us to feed its maw while also pushing relentless content our way that is casually vicious and undermining at the same time.
