Steve Huffman

The purpose of the internet was to connect people.

And the internet has indeed connected billions of people.

But being connected and the feeling of connection are two different things.

The more automated and summarized and sanitized and manicured that the rest of the internet becomes, the more we need places for people to be people, for people to be humans.

And now, our TED Talk of the day.

So I'm Steve Huffman, and today I want to start with a question.

Are humans going extinct on the internet?

I'll cut to the chase, my answer is no.

But the internet is becoming more automated and more optimized for attention.

And people feel more alone.

And the purpose of the internet was to connect people.

And the internet has indeed connected billions of people.

But being connected and the feeling of connection are two different things.

And so if we want to maintain our humanity on the internet, we're going to have to build it intentionally.

And I want to introduce an idea, which is the stage versus the city.

But first, a little bit of context.

So a few of us started Reddit in 2005, 20 years ago.

We were kids, I was 21.

We didn't have a plan for the future of the internet, we didn't have a plan for ourselves.

The idea was very simple.