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Panic World

BONUS PREVIEW: This is the dot-com crash all over again [Part 2]

05 Jun 2026

Transcription

Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.

Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?

0.031 - 6.517 Ryan

All right, Grant, welcome to Panic World, a show about how the internet warps our minds, our culture, and eventually reality. I'm a huge fan.

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7.017 - 26.655 Grant

You should let the other guys speak more often. What's up?

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26.675 - 27.235 Ryan

Thanks for coming on.

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Chapter 2: What would happen if major tech platforms suddenly failed?

27.276 - 53.668 Ryan

We typically do these bonuses where you basically do an episode at me. But I have been on vacation. Video listeners will see that I'm extremely sunburned. Sitting on the beach for the last few days, just doing what I normally do, which is think about the internet. And so I want to ask you to imagine something and then describe it. I've become kind of exhilarated by this idea.

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54.37 - 80.499 Ryan

What do you think the internet would look like if every major tech platform basically failed? And that includes Google. Just describe a day in the life in the near future if every tech platform suddenly just kind of failed. And maybe they haven't gone out of business, but you're no longer using them. A bunch of graveyard Alta Vista kind of places that you just don't go to anymore.

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81.3 - 82.863 Grant

Newsletters are probably crushing.

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84.446 - 85.087 Ryan

Do you think so?

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85.488 - 100.963 Grant

I think you'd get a lot of people trying to recreate a funneling system. that like immediately like like they would just fill in like this is what is familiar i think you would get yeah some iteration of chat rooms back

101.264 - 128.352 Grant

um i think people would be still trying to do silly things that like people would just be ignoring but i think that like here's the things to check out this email is going to link you to things you like and blogs would like really quickly repurpose themselves because people would go like oh but i'm like i only know how to find out about this through this so like list serves and different sort of like

129.31 - 132.603 Grant

You should read this. You should read this. And maybe those things are actually video now.

133.005 - 134.491 Ryan

Are they in this? Do you think?

135.314 - 140.336 Grant

It's not too hard to set up a website. to link a video.

Chapter 3: How is Google evolving with AI and what does 'Google Zero' mean?

177.266 - 204.367 Ryan

So, over the last few months, it's become very clear to me that the major companies that run the internet... Uh, at least the way the internet is used by most people. So your, your metas, your Googles, I mean, that's kind of it, right? Like the, like your meta and your Google and to a lesser extent, Tik TOK, I suppose. What about your chat, GBTs and clouds? Well, no, we'll get there.

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204.388 - 228.951 Ryan

We'll get there. So, so right now, Amazon meta and Google, the big three, uh, They're trying very hard to become AI companies. And what we've seen from the most recent update to Google's homepage, the Google search page, is that they are so interested in being AI companies that they're willing to jettison their core products. they're willing to cannibalize themselves.

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229.332 - 250.371 Ryan

The new AI search feature on Google's homepage, the biggest update to Google in 25 years or whatever, that dropped last week. And I will tell you that using Google is fundamentally worse than it was a week ago, especially from someone who was trying to get around. I was in San Juan, Puerto Rico for about four days, never been there before, trying to Google stuff.

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250.391 - 254.155 Ryan

It was actually very difficult now. Not only does it just take up more time

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254.135 - 283.753 Ryan

processing power on your phone and need a better internet connection to work it's not quite accurate and google is very invested in putting these ai features into their core products they're popping up in google maps and google docs and google search and it seems very clear to me that we are barreling towards some version of what people call google zero are you familiar with google zero no ryan what is google zero i didn't read garbage day yesterday uh it was a week ago but google zero is the possibility in the near future that websites no longer receive traffic from google

283.733 - 296.46 Ryan

And one of the main driving forces of a Google Zero future is chatbots. So they're just sort of aggregating and summarizing everything on the web, and then you read it in a chatbot, and that website doesn't get any traffic.

296.795 - 313.858 Ryan

If you think about Google Zero and you apply it to every other company, Amazon Zero, Facebook Zero, so a world where there are no longer any usable products to purchase on Amazon because it's filled with too much AI slop or the inventories are fake or whatever, or a meta zero where

313.838 - 328.45 Ryan

All of the content on Facebook, all of the interactions on Instagram are being driven by AI bots that are sort of just out of control and filled up with AI features that sort of remove you from seeing what your friends and your family are doing. This is the future I'm trying to imagine.

328.711 - 328.991 Grant

Yeah.

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