This seems ubiquitous (in baby steps) in my social circles. I think there's a big difference between general ai (LLMs) and the troubling implementations of ai like flock, and other surveillance implementations, spotify and their distortion of music, and their investment into ai military drone tech, etc. and how wrapped up politics has become in everything. Its a bad time to have a browser in your pocket.
I don’t know how ubiquitous it is in my circles, but I have noticed a lot of folks in their 20s and 30s tell me they only buy paper books, never Kindle. I started buying only the latter years ago because of the convenience and lack of a need for storage, but have recently switched to getting everything I can (digitally) through the library and the Libby app.
"It’s hard to quantify just how widespread the phenomenon is, but certain notably offline hobbies are exploding in popularity."
Assuming this is an actual trend that is actually "exploding"... I wonder what this means for the short term in the AI industry? Could we see a drop in users and then a big popping of the bubble?
That does seem like a really big assumption though.
The number of knitting kits sold (an example from the article) to me sounds like it might correlate more with the number of TikTok videos about knitting than the hours spent knitting.
The article almost encourages this interpretation, although I'd praise it for at least acknowledging the "performance" part.
It seems to mash consumerism, commercial Social Media and GenAI into one though.
Still, I try to see the positive side, and I think there certainly could be such a trend.
No idea if it's just a small part of people going against the grain, or a broader shift.
Regarding media addiction, there is a pattern that would be kind of similar, the large cohort of elderly people who are addicted to media and the commercial web, compared to the comparatively smaller portion of younger people falling victim.
Among my "elder millenial" friends, I can only say that abstinence from doomscrolling and modern tech (especially smartphones and SM) seems to correlate with integrity and smartness.
> The number of knitting kits sold (an example from the article)
Also, "knitting kits" were not a thing for most of my life. You'd just go and buy knitting supplies, which are really, just yarn needles and yarn. The idea of turning that into an overpriced boxed kit is a product of the TikTok / YT influencer era.
I still think the internet could undergo a "collapse" and rapidly shrink to something resembling the 2000's internet. The enshitification of everything is quite literally, "mining out" the value of the internet, hollowing everything from below. At some point, nothing is believable and putting your "content" online amounts to giving it away. Eventually, the users _will_ walk away and suddenly the whole affair falls apart.
It’s not gonna collapse. It can only grow bigger; the entire world economy runs and depends on the internet.
Rather, what will happen is a bunch of us will willingly stop participating and stepping away from the technological singularity. A bit like the Amish, this time not for religious reasons. Let the urbanites enjoy their AI-generated virtual realities, with work, sex, and food from the comfort of your phone, competing for fewer and more bullshit office jobs creating more addictive apps; I just want to live on a farm with solar panels, grow tomatoes and write code for fun.
Some have walked away from the worst sites already but the majority are undiscerning and if they haven't left by now I don't think anything will be different in 2026.
This seems ubiquitous (in baby steps) in my social circles. I think there's a big difference between general ai (LLMs) and the troubling implementations of ai like flock, and other surveillance implementations, spotify and their distortion of music, and their investment into ai military drone tech, etc. and how wrapped up politics has become in everything. Its a bad time to have a browser in your pocket.
I don’t know how ubiquitous it is in my circles, but I have noticed a lot of folks in their 20s and 30s tell me they only buy paper books, never Kindle. I started buying only the latter years ago because of the convenience and lack of a need for storage, but have recently switched to getting everything I can (digitally) through the library and the Libby app.
That does seem like a really big assumption though.
The number of knitting kits sold (an example from the article) to me sounds like it might correlate more with the number of TikTok videos about knitting than the hours spent knitting.
The article almost encourages this interpretation, although I'd praise it for at least acknowledging the "performance" part.
It seems to mash consumerism, commercial Social Media and GenAI into one though.
Still, I try to see the positive side, and I think there certainly could be such a trend.
No idea if it's just a small part of people going against the grain, or a broader shift.
Regarding media addiction, there is a pattern that would be kind of similar, the large cohort of elderly people who are addicted to media and the commercial web, compared to the comparatively smaller portion of younger people falling victim.
Among my "elder millenial" friends, I can only say that abstinence from doomscrolling and modern tech (especially smartphones and SM) seems to correlate with integrity and smartness.
> The number of knitting kits sold (an example from the article)
Also, "knitting kits" were not a thing for most of my life. You'd just go and buy knitting supplies, which are really, just yarn needles and yarn. The idea of turning that into an overpriced boxed kit is a product of the TikTok / YT influencer era.
Wow CNN's website is awful. They only let me accept tracking cookies, then threw 'subscribers only' at me.
I'm not sure I'll ever click a CNN link again.
This JavaScript (make a bookmarklet) should open the latest archive.ph snapshot of any page you're on:
```
javascript:window.open('https://archive.ph/newest/'+location.href.split('?')%5B0%5D,...')
```
HN cuts it off. Full line ends "%5B0%5D,'_blank')"
Change the subdomain to lite for a more text-oriented experience. https://lite.cnn.com/2026/01/18/business/crafting-soars-ai-a...
There might be a browser plugin to automatically do this, like exist with old.reddit.com.
I still think the internet could undergo a "collapse" and rapidly shrink to something resembling the 2000's internet. The enshitification of everything is quite literally, "mining out" the value of the internet, hollowing everything from below. At some point, nothing is believable and putting your "content" online amounts to giving it away. Eventually, the users _will_ walk away and suddenly the whole affair falls apart.
It’s not gonna collapse. It can only grow bigger; the entire world economy runs and depends on the internet.
Rather, what will happen is a bunch of us will willingly stop participating and stepping away from the technological singularity. A bit like the Amish, this time not for religious reasons. Let the urbanites enjoy their AI-generated virtual realities, with work, sex, and food from the comfort of your phone, competing for fewer and more bullshit office jobs creating more addictive apps; I just want to live on a farm with solar panels, grow tomatoes and write code for fun.
Some have walked away from the worst sites already but the majority are undiscerning and if they haven't left by now I don't think anything will be different in 2026.
> the majority are undiscerning
this has always been true, and might be a real reason to have public standards?