To the internet, I'll always be a bride

PLUS: Surviving a killer asteroid, and the great unbundling. View this email in your browser  |  Manage newsletter subscriptions  04.11.21 The internet seems to evolve so fast. Tune out for what feels like just a minute—the amount of time it takes for everyone to get clever about NFTs or that guy who found shrimp tails in his cereal—and you're liable to feel old and out of touch. Obsolete, inattentive. But here's the thing: The internet is even worse at keeping track of how you're evolving. Tech makers talk a big game about how their algorithms pay the utmost attention to you, follow your every move. But the web is actually a terrible listener: Shop for one pair of hiking boots, and it keeps showing you the same ads for weeks, never mind that you sprained your ankle and determined, definitively, that the outdoors is for other people. These broken-record dynamics are annoying, and they can even, in a funny sort of way, feel like being stuck in an alienating, lopsided relationship. But they're not always funny. Sometimes they cut deep. Sometimes they give a mutant, unholy power to the past—one that contradicts your identity. In 2019, Lauren Goode called off her wedding and walked away from an eight-year relationship. A super-user of technology, she has since found herself relentlessly confused—by Pinterest, wedding sites, Facebook, and a million other apps—for someone she chose not to become. Ads for wedding dresses. Automated anniversary congratulations. Reminders of "memories" that social platforms think she wants to see. So she began reporting on how the internet became a place that is economically at odds with forgetting—and how it never learns. The result is an essay as beautiful as it is powerful. John Gravois, Senior Editor | WIRED   I Called Off My Wedding. The Internet Will Never Forget BY LAUREN GOODE | 19-MINUTE READ In 2019, I made a painful decision. But to the algorithms that drive Facebook, Pinterest, and a million other apps, I'm forever getting married.   How to Survive a Killer Asteroid BY CODY CASSIDY | 10-MINUTE READ The impact that wiped out the dinosaurs would probably have killed you too—unless you were in the exact right place and had made the exact right plans.   My Dream of the Great Unbundling BY PAUL FORD | 5-MINUTE READ We don't need the next big thing. We need countless next little things.   The Healing Power of JavaScript BY CRAIG MOD | 7-MINUTE READ For some of us—isolates, happy in the dark—code is therapy, an escape and a path to hope in a troubled world.   Polarization Isn't America's Biggest Problem—or Facebook's BY DANIEL KREISS AND SHANNON MCGREGOR | 5-MINUTE READ A debate is raging over the social media giant's role in dividing the country. But it's the US's deeply-rooted inequities that tech should focus on.   Encryption Has Never Been More Essential—or Threatened BY WILL CATHCART | 8-MINUTE READ As we communicate more digitally, governments encroach more on our privacy. End-to-end encryption cannot be taken for granted. GET WIRED Save 66% on your subscription to WIRED. Get 1 year of WIRED for less than $1 per month, plus, get a free tote! You can't see into the future, but you can subscribe to WIRED. Subscribe now.         This e-mail was sent to you by WIRED. To ensure delivery to your inbox (not bulk or junk folders), please add our e-mail address, wired@newsletters.wired.com, to your address book.   View our Privacy Policy Unsubscribe or manage your newsletter subscriptions   Copyright © Condé Nast 2021. One World Trade Center, New York, NY 10007. All rights reserved.