There's also an element of economic drag caused by AI that did not exist with the internet: for example, the proliferation of slop content and AI-driven scams.

There's also an element of economic drag caused by AI that did not exist with the internet: for example, the proliferation of slop content and AI-driven scams. The internet did not almost immediately make previous modes of doing business more difficult but instead slowly replaced them with more efficient alternatives. AI has already enshittified things like Google search and product reviews. In many ways AI is undoing some of the gains of the internet without providing a replacement.