What killed the open Internet?

This is not a usual BikeGremlin article, but I think it is fair to share this and explain. My articles (on my websites) and my YouTube videos are practically censored, invisible on the Internet, and that is just the image of the times that we are in. The sudden, quick change that the human race is now going through is the main topic of this article.

Is BikeGremlin a reliable source of information?

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

For about a decade, I’ve been publishing technical stuff – mostly about bicycles, some about IT. This was basically a public version of my personal knowledge base – with the idea to help other people too while I’m at it (at least for the stuff I can share publicly).

I never wrote for “engagement.” Never optimized for trends. I wrote the kind of articles I wish I had found when I was learning (wrote for the 12-year old me): clear, honest, detailed, and tested.

It gained traction surprisingly quickly, so I went on to answer thousands of questions in my website comments and on forums – still with the idea to pass my acquired knowledge on to the new generations (just as I had acquired it).

Then, pretty suddenly, my work became invisible!
The Internet died.

For a closer look at how these broader changes have affected my personal publishing choices – especially the decision to switch primarily to English – see:
Why I no longer publish in two languages (mostly)

2. How the Internet died

2.1. Before the rise of “artificial intelligence”

In 2015, when I started building websites and publishing articles, I had a simple goal: to share knowledge and experience – in a way that would be useful to others, and to myself (as an easily accessible reference).

I did it my way – structured, detailed, clear, with specific examples and explanations. Every claim I made, I stood behind with my real name. I wrote every article as if it might be read by both complete beginners and experienced professionals – because I had been through all those phases myself, and I know how frustrating it is to find shallow, vague, or misleading texts.

For example, I made sure that every remotely important technical term had a link to a detailed explanation – nothing was assumed or taken for granted.

Interestingly, that way of working happened to match exactly what Google said it wanted to see: stuff made for people (not for the algorithm), by experienced professionals, hosted on fast, clean, transparent websites.

So I did the opposite of what many SEO and marketing “experts” advised – I made everything clear and genuinely helpful first and foremost. And Google rewarded that. At the time, searching for cycling-related topics (and other topics I covered) often returned my articles at the top of search results.

Google later named this approach “E-E-A-T” (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) in 2022. That means I was about seven years ahead of my time (and I thought it was just five! :)).
I also rode 28+ mm wide tyres on my road bike – over a decade before it was cool! 🙂

Google algorithm updates – brief overview

2.2. The turning point

In 2022, what we now call “Artificial Intelligence” or “AI” stepped onto the scene. Let me clarify upfront: by that I mean LLMs – Large Language Models – tools that repackage existing Internet text based on your prompts (without actual intelligence, but extremely quickly).

My article:
SEO, LLMs, and the Death of the Open Web?

By 2023, the Internet was flooded with articles written by ChatGPT. Today, the overwhelming majority of websites, articles, and videos are pure junk – made solely to grab your attention and keep you staring at ads.

ChatGPT can rework my entire site in a couple of hours, rephrasing it just enough to look different.
I even ran a short-lived experiment to test this – building a completely AI-generated website (with human expert editing, but still AI-written). The results were both impressive and disturbing: more on that here.
So unless you’re an expert, it’s hard to tell which version is full of nonsense and which one is actually accurate – they all look similar at first glance.

Do you realize the power – and the danger – this introduces? ChatGPT has no brain, no understanding, and no responsibility. It is extremely confident and polished when talking nonsense!

Google was in trouble. It couldn’t easily or cheaply separate quality from garbage using just algorithms. So it chose to turn to the dark side. It made a multimillion-dollar deal with Reddit, and started putting Reddit, along with a few other major corporate sites (like Forbes and Quora), at the top of search results for practically any query.

Google still talks about wanting what I had been doing all along, but in practice, I see my work has all but vanished from search results. The quality of my work hasn’t gone down – quite the opposite. There hasn’t been a flood of better content either. Google simply decided to fence off the Internet, prioritizing a few corporate-owned sites (often labelled “social networks”) – and its own YouTube platform (but prioritizing videos that get most “engagement” – and most advert playing time – not quality or education).

At the same time, Google is feeding its AI models with millions of human posts from across the Internet and Reddit (automated access to Reddit data is part of that multimillion-dollar deal). Soon, search results will just show AI answers instead of a list of links to websites and articles (this is already happening).

2.3. Effective censorship

I used to be able to Google a question and see my article pop up in the results. A bit later, in 2023, I had to search by the exact title. Today, even if I include “BikeGremlin” in the query, I still often don’t get my articles in the results. Google might suggest a YouTube video I made (again, YouTube is owned by Google), or a forum thread, but the website is basically censored.

You can test this yourself: a single Reddit post with a handful of upvotes will show up higher than expert-written articles or in-depth guides.

Corporations are shaping the visible Internet around what they control and own. If you read the terms of service, everything you post on platforms like YouTube, Reddit, Quora, Facebook, etc, is owned and governed by the platform.

Why does Reddit (and other “social” platforms) get such priority? Aside from the massive deal between Google and Reddit, you need to understand how Reddit is designed.

Reddit is built to prioritize consumption, not connection. Tiny usernames, collapsed comment threads, infinite scrolling – it’s made for quick reading, but leaves no room for memory, trust, or identity.

It’s like fast food for attention:
fast, shallow, without context – but “entertaining” and “engaging”.

That’s why Reddit threads now dominate Google search. Reddit is:

Quick to consume.
Emotion-driven.
Constantly refreshed.

…even when it’s superficial, inaccurate, or flat-out wrong. But it generates “engagement” – and that’s what Google now values most: grabbing and holding your attention.

And if you think this is just a Google issue, look at what’s happening across other platforms…

2.4. Platform censorship

I’ve already been banned and deleted from Quora – with no explanation. All my answers, all that effort: gone. (I wrote an article about that, but I doubt anyone saw it – the irony.) On Reddit, it’s becoming increasingly forbidden to share links to your own website.

It appears that the very essential block of Internet – hyperlinks – is now getting forbidden. What a time to be alive! 🙂
Why I Answer Questions on BikeGremlin Forum Only

How many times have you, watching one of my YouTube videos, clicked on a link to my website? YouTube technically allows those links – for now – but it quietly buries them. Other platforms openly block or heavily discourage them.

Try posting a link to your own website on any major social platform and see for yourself.

On YouTube, anything that isn’t “viral” loses visibility – the algorithm boosts what triggers impulsive reactions, not thoughtful ones.

You have no rights. You’re just a guest. And if you don’t play by the rules, you’ll be thrown out – even if you helped build the damn place.

That kind of policy limits my work to my websites, my YouTube channel, and my forum – but with almost no one actually seeing any of it.

3. Conclusion

What started as private notes grew into a global phenomenon – and now, by corporate decision, has been reduced back to a personal notebook.

This isn’t meant to be whining or attention-seeking. I just think it’s fair to explain to the people who’ve followed my work why there will be fewer articles and videos going forward. And why, even if I write or publish something, the odds are you’ll never even see it – because the Internet no longer works like it used to.

The Internet has changed. It’s no longer open. It’s no longer fair.

Google no longer wants what it claimed to want for years – until that became inconvenient for business. And at this point, it stops being a “tech” problem, and becomes a human one.

I’m not the one changing. The world around me is.

And if something I said or wrote still ends up helping someone, somewhere, someday – then it was worth it.

That’s why everything stays online, free. That’s why I still answer questions – but on the forum, where there’s a record. I don’t chase algorithms. I don’t make “content.” I write and record for people. And I do it because it helps me learn too.

If you’ve stayed this far – thank you. You are the reason this has meaning.

Maybe we’ll meet again. Maybe we won’t. But what matters and is good – will remain.