You are attacking it semantically, reading the article is a bit clearer he's not talking about the conveniences of services on the internet but specifically:
> 'Humans were the ones who scared me'
> "They were the angry villagers in Frankenstein - like the internet - these nameless faces [Burton makes monster roaring noises] and the monster always had the most emotion and most feeling even though they're looked upon as a certain way.
> "Every monster usually has some kind of pathos and some kind of humanity" that the humans lacked he added.
So "like the internet" means people on the internet, is it technically wrong to call comments, social media, etc. "the internet"? Yup, it doesn't mean it's not understood when we hear it, at least for me it's quite clear when people in real life tell me "I don't like to be on the internet" they mean this side of it.
I think it'd be a better discussion if you focused on what the article is about instead of your argument on semantics, you are verging quite into exactly "the people on the internet" by doing this.
I've seen too many fellow programmers fall into this. It's almost like they can't help themselves: a normie, valid complaint about tech gets summarily dismissed through semantic quibbles (even when done in good faith.)
It's quite common with engineering-adjacent or some hard sciences people. Attacking the semantics as if imprecise communication makes it valid to use technicalities to go around the main message.
I've been guilty of being somewhat that person when I was younger. Until I realised it doesn't lead anywhere, you just become a pedantic boring person, not dissimilar to these hollow debaters talking fast over people on the internet.
Imprecise communication still annoys me when I misunderstand what someone said because they used it but life is so much better when trying to understand what someone actually meant to say, and conversing about that. It leads places, or at least to some understanding. The other side is just self-stroking your ego to tell yourself you are "smarter", or "more intellectual" than someone else.
> 'Humans were the ones who scared me'
> "They were the angry villagers in Frankenstein - like the internet - these nameless faces [Burton makes monster roaring noises] and the monster always had the most emotion and most feeling even though they're looked upon as a certain way.
> "Every monster usually has some kind of pathos and some kind of humanity" that the humans lacked he added.
So "like the internet" means people on the internet, is it technically wrong to call comments, social media, etc. "the internet"? Yup, it doesn't mean it's not understood when we hear it, at least for me it's quite clear when people in real life tell me "I don't like to be on the internet" they mean this side of it.
I think it'd be a better discussion if you focused on what the article is about instead of your argument on semantics, you are verging quite into exactly "the people on the internet" by doing this.