Why does the internet feel worse than it used to?

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