> This started long before the decline of the open internet and AI. If anything, the shift online covered up a massive hollowing out of the industry. We're getting fewer sources of news, and more national coverage. A lot of stuff that is reported on is coming from a scant number of wire services, or directly from PR teams themselves.

1. By "decline of the open internet and AI" do you mean "decline from the open internet and AI" or "decline of the open internet from AI"?

2. That may be so, but I feel like statements like this, about trends that started before the current thing, have the effect of distracting people from the contemporary causes that are active now.

For instance: a lot of negative social trends currently blamed on modern "screens" and social media had their start long ago, but that doesn't mean smartphones and social media haven't had an extremely negative effect. "Screens" as a problem probably started long ago, with television, but each iteration has become more invasive and more difficult to control, eventually overwhelming many people's ability to choose healthier activities (e.g. there wasn't always something "on" TV that you wanted to watch, which gave you more space to choose to do something else, but that never happens with a smartphone).

I posit things would have likely stabilized at a healthier level without the current technologies, so it's quite right right to blame those technologies for their effects.