Lauana Granair D. December 16, 2025

Is the Internet Dead?

Save authentic human content with Dewey before the internet drowns in AI noise. Curate, preserve, and organize what truly matters.

Table of Contents

What Ohanian Really Means
The Numbers Don’t Lie
Social Media No Longer Feels Human
What Happens When Bots Outnumber Humans?
The Turning Point
How Do We Save the Human Web?
A Human-First Way to Save, Organize & Protect Meaningful Content
The Defense Against the “Dead Internet”
Why You Should Start a “Humanized Content Collection” Today
How Dewey Makes Content Curation Simple (and Even Fun)
What a “Human Internet” Could Look Like If We Build It
The Warning Is a Roadmap, Not a Eulogy
The Internet Isn’t Dead, But It Needs Saving

When Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian said in a recent interview that “most of the internet is dead,” he wasn't being dramatic. According to him, the modern web is increasingly approaching “robotic” status, flooded with low-quality, automated content created by bots and AI systems rather than real people.

This shift hasn’t just changed what we see online. It’s rewriting the very nature of digital interaction. Automated posts, synthetic engagement, and AI-generated articles now shape the online world more than actual human voices.

But Ohanian’s warning comes with a challenge: The next generation of social media must be “provably human.”

And that’s where you, and tools like Dewey, come in.

Here we’ll break down why Ohanian says the internet is dying, what’s accelerating the decay, and how individuals, creators, and organizations can fight back by curating, saving, and elevating authentic, human content before it disappears under the noise.

What Ohanian Really Means

According to the Reddit co-founder, the internet is transforming from a vibrant ecosystem of human conversation into an automated wasteland where bots outnumber people. He cites the “dead internet theory,” a growing belief that machine activity is surpassing meaningful human interaction.

On a TBPN live, he explained that the internet needs “live viewers and content,” not endless streams of synthetic posts designed to farm engagement. He even told the podcast hosts that their real-time conversation was proof that “most of the internet is dead.”

What Ohanian is actually pointing to is obvious: People are still online, but humanity is fading more each day.

The Numbers Don’t Lie

Several large-scale studies confirm what Ohanian is warning us about:

Over 50% of Internet Traffic Comes from Bots

The Advanced Persistent Bots Report (2025) analyzed 207 billion web transactions and found that 50.04% of all internet activity comes from bots.

Nearly 5% Is Malicious Bot Traffic

These aren’t harmless programs, indexing webpages. Nearly 4.8% of bot traffic is malicious, designed to manipulate algorithms, steal data, or mimic human behavior.

57% of Online Content Is Now AI-Generated

An AWS study reported that over half of online content was already AI-generated as of last year.

Europe Projects 90% Synthetic Content by 2026

EU law enforcement predicts that by 2026, up to 90% of all content online could be synthetically created. That means most of what you read may not come from a human at all, just another bot or AI system.

This isn’t a sci-fi prediction. It’s happening right now.

Social Media No Longer Feels Human

Ohanian argues that people crave more actual, intimate digital experiences. They're fleeing traditional platforms to find them where authenticity still exists.

He praises apps like Signal and Discord for fostering genuine conversation, calling them the “gold standard” for human interaction. But he also admits that even these platforms aren’t enough to fix what’s broken.

Why? Because even group chats are now infiltrated by AI-generated messages.

The human layer of the internet is thinning.

What Happens When Bots Outnumber Humans?

When automated content overwhelms real voices, several dangerous things happen:

Trust Erodes

If everything could be generated, nothing would feel real.

Information Quality Collapses

AI systems often remix existing content instead of creating new insights.

Manipulation Becomes Easier

Bot networks can artificially inflate engagement, sway discourse, or create false consensus.

Human Creativity Gets Buried

Real stories and ideas get drowned out in an ocean of noise.

This is why Ohanian says the internet is “dead”. Not because humans have left, but because they’re being overwhelmed.

The Turning Point

Ohanian believes that the next generation of platforms will revolve around specific verification: proving that real people are behind the content to make it trustworthy.

This doesn’t just mean identity verification. It means proof of authorship, originality, intention, and creativity.

Essentially, a decentralized movement toward human-first technology.

How Do We Save the Human Web?

If the internet is being drowned by synthetic content, the solution isn't to abandon it. It's to preserve what matters, the signal amid the noise.

To collect the articles, posts, videos, conversations, and resources that still reflect human thinking, storytelling, and creativity.

This is where Dewey becomes an essential tool for the future of the Internet.

A Human-First Way to Save, Organize & Protect Meaningful Content

Dewey is a neatly designed, simple, powerful bookmarking tool built to help people save and organize content from across the web. It’s like Pinterest, but made for researchers, creators, designers, and anyone who values human insight.

Dewey allows users to:

Save content from anywhere (web, social media, LinkedIn, TikTok, etc.).
Organize everything into collections, sections, and hashtags.
Add notes, tags, and personal commentary.
Keep content synced across all devices.
Export and search through thousands of saved posts.

Dewey can help you catalog, for example, thousands of saved LinkedIn posts, something that LinkedIn itself doesn’t handle well.

This is important because if the internet becomes mostly AI-generated, Dewey becomes one of the most reliable tools for actively preserving the content that isn't.

The Defense Against the “Dead Internet”

Here’s how Dewey helps fight back against the decline of authentic content:

It Helps You Build a Library of Human-Authored Ideas

Instead of letting valuable posts vanish into the feed, Dewey helps you capture them permanently.

It Helps You Curate What’s Real

With tagging, notes, and folders, you create meaning, not noise.

It Helps You Preserve Context

AI removes nuance. Dewey lets you add your own thoughts, making each bookmark more personal and human.

It Helps You Track What Inspires You

Instead of losing insights, you build a structured system of human inspiration.

It Helps You Share Humanized Collections

Some users even create public collections, preserving conversations and knowledge that matter.

It Helps You Combat the Tide of AI Spam

By elevating authentic content, you counterbalance automated feed pollution.

Why You Should Start a “Humanized Content Collection” Today

Creating your own curated collection of meaningful content is more important now than ever. Here’s why:

AI-generated content will soon overwhelm most of the open web.
Platforms will bury posts that don't match algorithmic priorities, making them invisible.
Social media archives are unreliable and often inaccessible.
Human insights and creative outputs disappear unless you save them.

Consider creating collections like:

Authentic essays that moved you
Creators whose ideas you trust
Posts that made you think differently
Stories that shaped your worldview
Conversations that felt human

This isn’t just a digital organization. It’s digital care.

How Dewey Makes Content Curation Simple (and Even Fun)

Your documents highlight specific Dewey features that make the process surprisingly effortless:

Smart tagging helps you categorize content quickly.
Visual previews let you skim everything at a glance.
Instant sync keeps your library accessible on every device.
Bulk import tools pull in saved posts from platforms like LinkedIn and Instagram.

Even animated GIFs play inside Dewey’s grid view, small details that make browsing more enjoyable.

What a “Human Internet” Could Look Like If We Build It

Imagine an online world where:

Human-created collections matter more than algorithms.
People curate content they value, not content platforms push.
Communities form around authentic voices, not automated noise.
Trust becomes the currency of digital interaction.

We can’t rely on big platforms to make this happen. But individuals can contribute simply by curating, saving, and protecting meaningful content.

The Warning Is a Roadmap, Not a Eulogy

Let’s summarize the core message:

The internet isn’t dead, but it’s suffocating under automation.
Bots dominate more than half of all traffic.
AI-generated content is becoming the default, not the exception.
Human interactions are disappearing from public platforms.
The next era will revolve around proving humanity.
Tools like Dewey help preserve the parts of the internet worth saving.

If we want a human internet, we must act like humans and curate like humans.

The Internet Isn’t Dead, But It Needs Saving

Alexis Ohanian’s warning isn’t a signal to give up. It’s a reminder that the internet is only as alive as the humans who participate in it.

Tools like Dewey empower each of us to safeguard real, thoughtful, human-created content.

By using it to curate and preserve what matters, you’re not just collecting links—you’re preserving culture, ideas, and authentic voices in an increasingly synthetic world.

The future of the internet won’t be shaped by bots.

It will be shaped by the people who choose to protect what’s human.