The End of the Internet…or Is It?

Over the past decade, we have tacitly acknowledged that online, we are the product. Our search histories and scrolling habits are being sold, not just to corporations, but also to government intelligence agencies. Relinquishing any modicum of privacy feels so inevitable that most of us passively surrender our online data to the ownership of a few major internet conglomerates. Dylan Reibling’s 2025 film, The End of the Internet, which screened at the 28th annual RIDM (Montreal International Documentary Festival) back in November, provides a glimpse into various resistance groups around the globe operating decentralized online networks to resist this data control. 

Instantly positioning the consolidation of internet power as problematic, the film opens with an anecdote about the so-called “Google Maps War,” in which an armed conflict was nearly incited between Nicaragua and Costa Rica due to Google Maps mistakenly labelling Isla Calero as Nicaraguan territory. The film then attempts to demystify how the internet operates by describing network nodes, undersea fibre optic cables, and internet exchange points, showcasing how the centralized internet leaves users vulnerable to cyber attacks and control of information. 

The crux of the film introduces five decentralizing movements seeking to preserve ownership of data in the hands of the user. Mimicking the experience of surfing the web, the film bounces between communities in Germany, Brazil, Hong Kong, Catalonia, and Miami, offering cursory glances into the internet experiments occurring within them. In the social media age, when our shortened attention spans have been tirelessly memed and editorialized to the point of tedium, this spasmodic structure is well-suited. That said, the most common refrain I overheard when leaving the theatre was that people wished the film selected a subject to focus on in further depth.

In the director’s statement published on the film’s website, Reibling writes that the objective of the decentralizing groups is “to rewire the internet in the service of freedom and equity.” This prescription undoubtedly applies to a platform like Mapeo, a peer-to-peer mapping tool used by Indigenous communities in Brazil to ensure that information regarding locations of various natural resources is protected from government seizure. However, the film spends significant time on the decentralized personal server platform Urbit, a platform which decidedly opposes those professed ideological claims. 

Urbit was co-founded by Galen Wolfe-Pauly and Curtis Yarvin, the latter of whom has amassed a loyal following as a far-right political pundit under his pseudonym Mencius Moldbug. Yarvin argues for “neocameralism,” a political system that abolishes liberal democracy and replaces it with a patchwork of city-states each owned by a CEO sovereign. Yarvin is essentially a technofascist who is on the record saying that he is “not exactly allergic” to white nationalism, among other reactionary statements. These might sound like the ravings of a lunatic, but his ideas are endorsed by some of the most influential members of the American ruling class, including Vice President JD Vance and his puppet master, Peter Thiel. Yarvin’s social vision is inextricable from Urbit, as the network’s hierarchical structure materializes neocameralism on a virtual scale. 

Yet, Yarvin’s neofascistic social vision is only briefly mentioned in the final minutes of the documentary—a choice which, combined with the film’s presentation of Urbit in an identical manner to all other networks presented and the inclusion of Urbit’s literal marketing materials, leaves viewers with what is functionally an advertisement for the platform. 

I left the documentary feeling rather helpless, as while some of the decentralized movements Reibling shows are fascinating and commendable, the documentary gave no material advice on how an ordinary girl like me can seize control of my data and protect against corporate and government surveillance. Urbit is the most accessible decentralized option covered in the documentary, which frankly feels like that “the illusion of free choice” meme where a cow sees two hallways that lead to the same dead end—in this case, the dead end is a technofascist future where my mortal enemy Peter Thiel reigns supreme.

The End of the Internet screened at the 28th annual RIDM and is streaming on MUBI.