Why does the internet feel worse than it used to?

About this episode

Rabble and Molly White discuss the decline of the internet's quality, exploring scams, the evolution of crypto, and the potential for a more trustworthy online environment.

From scams and spam to platforms we don’t control, many of the systems shaping our online lives feel increasingly broken. In this episode of Revolution.Social, Rabble (Twitter’s first employee) sits down with Molly White, software engineer, Wikipedia editor, and creator of “Web3 is Going Just Great”, to unpack what’s actually gone wrong, and whether it can be fixed. Molly has spent years documenting the realities behind crypto and the modern internet, from high-profile collapses to the incentives that allow scams and bad actors to thrive. Together, they explore: Why Wikipedia still works as a model of the “digital commons” How crypto evolved from idealism into an ecosystem full of scams Whether the people building these systems truly believe in them Why prediction markets like Polymarket and Kalshi raise new risks Plus: how Rabble became the subject of a $50,000 prediction market bet. Can we rebuild an internet that’s more open, trustworthy, and user-controlled — or are these problems here to stay? Chapters: 0:00 Introduction 4:34 Wikipedia as a Commons 10:25 Resisting Authoritarian Attacks on Open Projects 14:05 The Rise and Fall of the Web3 Utopian Myth 18:23 Crypto Scams and…

People in this episode

Host: Rabble

Guest: Molly White

Topics covered

• internet issues
• crypto scams
• digital commons
• Web3
• regulatory capture
• online safety laws

Keywords

• internet
• scams
• crypto
• Wikipedia
• Web3
• digital commons
• online safety
• regulatory capture

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Wikipedia, Web3 is Going Just Great, Polymarket, Kalshi

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