The End of the Internet (Stratechery Article 10-26-2026)

1. Key Themes

Theme: The Internet's winning move is always to "go smaller"

Thompson argues that each phase of the Internet (blogs, social media, software) was ruined by open, infinite competition, and each was redeemed by shrinking the audience to something scarce, trusted, and valuable.

Blogging survives by limiting audience and charging for it

Free distribution created abundance, which pushed discovery (Google) to the top of the value chain and crushed ad economics for bloggers. The answer was subscriptions and niche focus.

"because everything is open, everyone has an opportunity, which means infinite competition, which is terrible for business."

"In short, the answer to drowning in abundance is to purposely limit your audience — to go small. That is an economic model that works... Blogging is alive and well, it's just constrained, and thus worth paying for."

Social networking moved from public feeds to group chats

Public social platforms degraded into engagement-tuned entertainment, while real social networking migrated to private, high-trust groups.

"Community, sadly, doesn't scale; any platform that is available to everyone starts out special and spirals from there. Ultimately, public social media sites became personal entertainment sites, tuned for engagement, culminating in TikTok, a social media site with basically zero social component."

"the redemption of social media was — just like blogging — to become smaller. The scaling that mattered for most people was not an ever larger audience, but a proliferation of infinite finite groups."

Theme: AI-driven security collapse is ending the open, self-hosted Internet

AI gives attackers limitless time and the ability to substitute iteration for cleverness, making it unviable for individuals to run their own servers. Thompson expects the problem to worsen before improving, with AI-rewritten software and AI defenders eventually restoring security.

"The saving factor previously is that attackers were limited by human time and ingenuity as well; AI, however, has limitless time and the ability to substitute iteration for cleverness."

"it was already a dodgy proposition to stand up your own site or app, which was the very promise of the Internet, given the hacking risks; in the age of AI it's madness."

"in the long run software will be better when it is (re)written by AI, and defended by agents continuously."

The public Internet becomes a battle zone or wasteland

Beyond security, AI consumes content and attention without returning traffic, as Google once did.

"the public Internet, to an even greater extent than now, will be a battle zone at best (i.e. social media), and a wasteland at worst (everything else). Some of this is economic, as AI consumes everything — both content and attention — without giving any of the traffic back that Google did."

Theme: The "group chat era" of software

With AI, software no longer needs a large audience to justify its development cost, opening a new market of bespoke software for individuals and small teams.

"Software has always been different from physical goods in that its zero marginal cost nature meant it could scale to far more people; at the same time, the sheer amount of up-front effort involved in creating it meant that the intended audience needed to be large enough to justify the investment. AI completely changes that: suddenly it's possible to create software for one person, or one team."

"the group chat era of software is here and it's going to be so much better than what came before."

Theme: Smallness at scale means infinite local markets

Thompson frames the future as many small associations, each with its own market, rather than one global market dominated by scale.

"smallness at scale, though, means there is not one global market, but infinite local ones. 'Local' might mean geographic, or it might mean a private network; what many markets definitely means is many opportunities, because economies of scale matter less than the ability to meet new needs that only arise at the level of the association."

"Markets are just another word for needs and desires and the mechanisms of meeting and fulfilling them; the end of the Internet may mean the possibilities for creation are only just beginning."

Theme: AI as a demand expander ("cognitive capitalism"), not a mind-surplus problem

Citing Venkatesh Rao, Thompson suggests AI could free minds from "subsistence cognition" the way industrialization freed people from subsistence farming, unleashing new demand.

"The most important consequence of the agricultural revolution was not that farming became more efficient. It was that most people were liberated from the necessity of farming, allowing entirely new kinds of economic and cultural life to emerge."

"The cognitive capitalist sees the possibility of an almost limitless expansion of demand, and a world full of minds whose potential has barely begun to be explored."

2. Contrarian Perspectives

Don't try to make a quick buck in the App Store; build for yourself and a small group

Consensus holds that cheap AI app creation means a gold rush of consumer apps. Thompson argues the opposite: the flood of "slop" will degrade the public market for everyone, and the real opportunity is private, small-audience software.

"When anyone can make an app, the answer is not to try and make a quick buck in the App Store; in fact, the surge in slop will make the market worse for everyone. Rather, it's to make something for yourself and a small group of trusted friends and colleagues."

Social networking is stronger than ever, even as "social media" declined

Against the narrative that social media's decay means the decline of online social life, Thompson says it simply moved to private group chats. He also notes the old model's 90-9-1 participation skew.

"I think that social networking is stronger than ever; the difference is that it isn't public, but is rather in group chats."

"Social media 1.0, even at its best, followed the 90-9-1 rule: one percent spoke, nine percent commented, and 90 percent lurked; the magic of group chats is not in giving everyone a voice, but a place where you feel safe to talk."

Pessimism about the end of the Internet coexists with optimism about what comes next

Thompson mourns the old Internet yet argues the post-Internet era favors creation and many markets rather than scarcity, countering both the "AI Malthusian" and "cognitive mercantilist" views.

"The cognitive mercantilist sees a world threatened by an oversupply of intelligence and an impending surplus of useless minds. The AI Malthusian sees a world in which intelligence outruns the capacity of humanity to absorb it... The cognitive capitalist sees the possibility of an almost limitless expansion of demand."

3. Companies Identified

Pressable / Automattic

• Description: Managed WordPress host, owned by Automattic.
• Why mentioned: Stratechery's WordPress is managed here, so it was patched before the PHP vulnerability was disclosed.
• Quote: "that WordPress is managed by Pressable, an Automattic company. That meant that my site was patched before the vulnerability was disclosed, and it would be crazy for me — or anyone else — to do it any other way."

Google

• Description: Search and advertising giant (AdSense).
• Why mentioned: The "real winner of the web" because it provided discovery when distribution became free.
• Quote: "Ultimately, however, the real winner of the web was Google: as the amount of content became abundant, Google offered not distribution — which was free — but rather discovery."

Stripe

• Description: Payments infrastructure provider (sponsor).
• Why mentioned: Foundation for Internet-native companies, including Stratechery, Substack creators, fintechs, and AI companies billing on usage.
• Quote: "AI companies can charge for what customers actually use, which is particularly important when usage also drives costs, without having to build the systems to track and bill for it themselves."

Substack

• Description: Newsletter and subscription publishing platform.
• Why mentioned: Case study in integrating the disparate pieces of building a subscription publication.
• Quote: "building Stratechery was complicated and involved gluing together disparate pieces; Substack made it easy by delivering an integrated offering."

WordPress

• Description: Open-source blogging software.
• Why mentioned: Illustrates the old Internet's DIY complexity versus today's managed hosting.
• Quote: "I was intrigued by a just-released piece of software that promised a five-minute install; it was called WordPress."

TikTok

• Description: Short-video platform.
• Why mentioned: The endpoint of social media's drift toward engagement over community.
• Quote: "culminating in TikTok, a social media site with basically zero social component."

Twitter

• Description: Public social network.
• Why mentioned: Once a community akin to the early Internet, and a distribution channel for Stratechery.
• Quote: "Twitter was a community, not unlike the early Internet: genuinely interesting conversations happened in public, and you could reply-guy your way to broader distribution."

Facebook

• Description: Social network.
• Why mentioned: Adopted algorithmic feeds relatively early as content volume grew.
• Quote: "Facebook had one relatively early, but it took Twitter much longer."

Companies named in the security breach list

• Description: LiteLLM, Railway, Node.js, GitLab, Java, Cisco.
• Why mentioned: Examples of the vulnerability wave in a single week.
• Quote: "Major new vulnerabilities in Node.js, GitLab, Java, and Cisco products. Breaches in LiteLLM's supply chain and Railway developer platform."

4. People Identified

Venkatesh Rao

• Description: Essayist, author of "Cognitive Mercantilism."
• Why mentioned: His framework of cognitive mercantilist, AI Malthusian, and cognitive capitalist anchors the optimistic demand-expansion thesis.
• Quote: "Venkatesh Rao wrote an absolute must-read essay over the weekend called Cognitive Mercantilism."

Alexis de Tocqueville

• Description: French political thinker, author of Democracy in America.
• Why mentioned: His observation about American associations supports the "infinite small markets" thesis.
• Quote: "The English often perform great things singly; whereas the Americans form associations for the smallest undertakings."

Andrew Sullivan

• Description: Early blogger who pioneered reader-supported publishing.
• Why mentioned: Proof that subscriptions could work for a singular voice.
• Quote: "Sullivan was, for the last two years, supported by reader subscriptions to the tune of nearly one million dollars a year."

Dave Winer

• Description: Often considered the father of blogs; founded Scripting News in 1997.
• Why mentioned: Origin of blogging history.
• Quote: "Dave Winer, often considered the father of blogs, started Scripting News in 1997."

Justin Hall

• Description: Early blogger.
• Why mentioned: Started Links.net in 1994.
• Quote: "Justin Hall started Links.net in 1994."

Jorn Barger

• Description: Coined "weblog."
• Why mentioned: Early blogosphere history.
• Quote: "Jorn Barger coined the term 'weblog' for Robot Wisdom, also in 1997."

Ezra Klein

• Description: Blogger/writer.
• Why mentioned: Cited as fearing loss of reader loyalty in the 2015 excerpt.
• Quote: "Right there was the exact loyalty that Klein fears has been lost."

5. Operating Insights

Use managed infrastructure instead of self-hosting

Self-managed servers are an unacceptable risk in an AI-accelerated attack environment.

"it would be crazy for me — or anyone else — to do it any other way."

Build private, bespoke internal software

Stratechery builds internal tools for podcast production, task tracking, and calendars that it never releases, filling "software-shaped holes" without asking permission.

"we have made a bunch of different apps, for everything from podcast production to task trackers to calendar management, none of which will ever be made available publicly."

Serve a niche with scarcity and charge those who care

Rather than chasing ad pennies from the masses, limit your audience and monetize loyalty.

"niches are best served by making more from customers who really care than from milking pennies from everyone."

6. Overlooked Insights

Anyone can now "fill software-shaped holes" without permission

Thompson has built apps for managing his house and sports viewing, suggesting a large latent market of personal software needs.

"it turns out I had a lot of software-shaped holes in my life that suddenly I can fill without asking permission."

One security incident was human incompetence, not AI

A compromised intermediate CA key was a reminder that not every breach is AI-driven, which complicates attributing the vulnerability wave solely to AI.

"Compromised intermediate CA private keys (although this was an example of sheer incompetence, not AI hacking)."