• by Shirley Marschall , Featured Contributor, May 29, 2025

As generative content floods the web, maybe the future web isn’t hybrid, but parallel? Let humans have their own web. Let bots optimize each other into oblivion.

Maybe it’s time we stopped arguing about open web vs. walled gardens and addressed a growing unease: the real divide might be bigger and stranger: humans vs. bots. Along with it comes the blurring of human- and machine-driven content and what that means for value, creativity, and attention.

Because let’s be honest — right now, we’re not exactly sailing into a happily-ever-after web together.

There’s the internet we used to know (the good old days) — full of curiosity, creativity, and the occasional beautifully crafted brand moment. And then there’s… whatever this is now.

One inspired. The other optimizes. One made culture. The other scrapes it.

There’s the algorithmic mess of AI slop: Fake product reviews for fake products made by fake people. Content designed not to resonate, but to rank. Headlines that read like bait. Ads that chase, follow, interrupt, disappear — and return with more urgency.

And somehow, we’re still calling all of it “the web.”

One Web to Seduce. One Web to Convert.

Maybe it’s time for a divorce —a digital divorce. And to go our separate ways, for good.

Let humans have their own internet. A space made for humans, by humans. Content created by humans and worth the time it takes to be consumed by humans. Ads worth watching. Design worth pausing for.

Let’s bring back the beauty of seduction in advertising — the kind that makes people feel something, not just buy something. Yes, advertising as seduction, not pure interruption. Let this web reward curiosity, not clicks. Craft, not automation. Emotion, not efficiency.

This could be the brand internet. The one where ideas matter more than impressions. Where stories matter more than scrolls.

And Let the Bots Have Their Own Slop-Fight

Let AI have its own space. An internet where bots talk to bots. Where AI-generated influencers sell to AI-generated audiences. Where “Buy Now” buttons are optimized by other AI agents to close deals at machine speed.

Let it run 24/7 — perfectly measurable, and perfectly meaningless.

This could be the performance internet — the one that works but  doesn’t move anyone.

Two Internets. Two Purposes. One Truth.

Maybe the problem isn’t that digital is broken. Maybe it’s that we’ve been trying to cram two opposing goals into the same system.

Brand vs. performance.

Human vs. AI.

Connection vs. conversion.

We keep asking creative to scale and programmatic to inspire — and then we wonder why neither works.

So let’s stop pretending. Let’s build one internet for meaning — and one for machines. Let machines browse, transact, and optimize within their own lane — so the human web can stay creative, meaningful, and worth visiting.

Because maybe the future isn’t hybrid. Maybe it’s parallel. And maybe that’s a win-win.

One web to feel. One web to function. Let’s stop confusing the two. Let’s not allow the bot-web to erase what made the human web worth visiting.