{"podcast":{"title":"Revolution.Social","slug":"revolution-social-7409931","podcast_index_feed_id":7409931,"rss_url":"https://anchor.fm/s/11425154c/podcast/rss","website_url":"https://revolution.social/","image_url":"https://d3t3ozftmdmh3i.cloudfront.net/staging/podcast_uploaded_nologo/46229419/49a2b074e1d12f41.jpg","author":"Rabble a.k.a. Evan Henshaw-Plath","episode_count":49,"summary":"A podcast about the future of social media and reclaiming our digital communities. Revolution.Social is hosted by technologist and community advocate Rabble, a.k.a. Evan Henshaw-Plath — who was Twitter’s first employee and hired Jack Dorsey. In weekly interviews, Rabble will interview thought leaders, technologists, academics, and more about the need for a new social media \"bill of rights.\" Just as the original Bill of Rights protected individual freedoms from government overreach, we need fundamental protections from corporate control and surveillance capitalism. This is the start of a conversation about what developers are building, how they're building it, and what consumers need to be asking for. Guests will include Jack Dorsey (former CEO & co-founder of Twitter); Kara Swisher (host of On with Kara Swisher, co-host of Pivot); Cory Doctorow (science fiction author & former editor of Boing Boing); and Taylor Lorenz (founder of User Mag, host of Power User).","last_synced_at":"2026-07-09T16:20:23.930135+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/revolution-social-7409931"},"episode":{"title":"Why does the internet feel worse than it used to?","slug":"why-does-the-internet-feel-worse-than-it-used-to","published_at":"2026-04-02T07:30:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/revolution-social-7409931/why-does-the-internet-feel-worse-than-it-used-to","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/revolution-social-7409931","url":"https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/divine01/episodes/Why-does-the-internet-feel-worse-than-it-used-to-e3l6of9","audio_url":"https://anchor.fm/s/11425154c/podcast/play/121905065/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2026-5-23%2F426709609-44100-2-90ceffa3edc3efcd.mp3","summary":"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 Failures 20:34 Cozying Up to the White House 24:00 The Dangers of Online \"Safety\" Laws 30:19 Regulatory Capture and the Return of High-Risk Finance 38:23 \"The Financialization of Everything\" 45:51 Social Good vs. Token Value 55:26 Returning to the IndieWeb and Open Protocols 1:01:27 Why You Should Own Your Domain Name 1:05:09 Protocols Over Platforms as a Check on Power Molly’s website Her newsletter, Citation Needed Follow Rabble on Bluesky Follow the podcast This episode was produced and edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm, and executive produced by Alice Chan from Flock Marketing. To…","meta_description":"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.So…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":4050,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/revolution-social-7409931/episodes/why-does-the-internet-feel-worse-than-it-used-to/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/revolution-social-7409931/why-does-the-internet-feel-worse-than-it-used-to.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}