[drkleiner]

Internet used to be a village, with nice cozy places and communities but also shady weird individuals and houses you're not supposed to enter

Now it is a shopping mall, sanitized, organized, brands and ads plastered all around, not really for socializing and community but more for products and marketing, you can still find a bookstore or a cafe but in the end, shopping mall is there to make you shop

[idle_zealot]

This interpretation is funny considering the other post in this thread bemoaning the loss of the shopping malls of their youth. As a metaphor it's on the right track, but the way the internet has been commercialized is even more extreme than a shopping mall, in the sense that experience is individually curated for each visitor and every tap, moment of hesitation, and utterance between friends is catalogued by the "store owner".

[brazzy]

And it's a shopping mall that has a bunch of big stores that openly sell meth, and advertize for it aggressively.