Mathew Ingram

Centennial Scarborough, Toronto

Technology Writer at Freelance

I write about tech and media from my kayak somewhere in Canada. Also @mathewi on Mastodon, BlueSky and Threads

Articles

How Marc Andreessen and I (and you) created the web

3 days ago | torment-nexus.mathewingram.com | Mathew Ingram

I've never met Marc Andreessen, although at one time in the distant past we were Twitter friends — I enjoyed the long threads he used to do, and I wrote about a few of them at Gigaom in a previous lifetime (including one about how newspapers should "burn the boats" by getting rid of their print operations). I recall thanking him a number of years ago on the anniversary of the creation of Mosaic, the first graphical web browser, something I also wrote about recently at The Torment Nexus.
Apple is a great company, except for when it isn't

1 week ago | torment-nexus.mathewingram.com | Mathew Ingram

Let's get this out of the way right up front: I don't have an iPhone, I have a Pixel. And I run Windows and Linux on my desktops, not MacOS. That said, I am a longtime Macbook Air fan, having had more than half a dozen (including the one I am typing this on), and a longtime iPad owner. To me, the Macbook Air is an amazing device — there are some that can duplicate the specs, but the build quality is unparalleled. Same with the iPad: I have tried multiple Android tablets and none were as good.
If AI helps to kill the open web what will replace it?

2 weeks ago | torment-nexus.mathewingram.com | Mathew Ingram

— 10 min read If you've been following the news about Google's I/O conference at all, you probably know that it was all about artificial intelligence — and that isn't an exaggeration. Literally every announcement, every feature, and every app demonstration involved AI in some form or another.
Some thoughts on how people (including me) are using AI

3 weeks ago | torment-nexus.mathewingram.com | Mathew Ingram

— 11 min read As many of you may have noticed, some of these Torment Nexus newsletters involve the presentation of a bunch of evidence in the form of links, followed by a well-thought-out conclusion (some may be more well-thought than others, but I let's not quibble).
The Trump administration is building a Panopticon

1 month ago | torment-nexus.mathewingram.com | Mathew Ingram

— 10 min read It seems quaint now, but not that long ago, one of the biggest reasons for concern about the surveillance of our behavior by massive internet platforms like Facebook, Google, and Amazon — or by companies buying click data and GPS location from our smartphones — was that they might use that information to flog advertising at us in a more personalized and irritating way.
What should we do if an AI becomes conscious?

1 month ago | torment-nexus.mathewingram.com | Mathew Ingram

— 9 min read A recent New York Times piece arrived with a headline that asked "If AI systems become conscious, should they have rights?" If you were to judge the article by the response on social media like X and Bluesky (which is almost always a mistake, as many of you are no doubt already aware), you would think that writer Kevin Roose wrote some credulous claptrap about how all AIs are human and therefore we need to start thinking about their feelings.
Media Bits and Bytes - April 29, 2025

1 month ago | portside.org | Robert Kuttner |Rachel Leingang |Mathew Ingram |Mimi Zou

Media Bits and Bytes – April 29, 2025 Published April 29, 2025 The End of Press Freedom? A Tidal Wave Started on RedditAntitrust AgonyNews Coverage of Mass OppositionDeepSeek Goes GlobalTech Oligarchs’ Prophetic VisionsOpenAI Innovator Ordered Out of the CountryNetflix CEO Says Theaters are FinishedA Political Sitcom to RememberWFMU ForeverThe End of Press Freedom?
Google Faces a Potential Breakup on Multiple Fronts

1 month ago | cjr.org | Mathew Ingram

Sign up for The Media Today, CJRâs daily newsletter. There’s been a lot of attention recently on the government’s antitrust case against Meta, in part because Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO, spent three days testifying in court about his company’s alleged anticompetitive tactics. (Klaudia JaĹşwiĹska wrote about the case in this newsletter last week.) That case is just starting to get underway.
Meta may be bad but the FTC's antitrust case is still weak

1 month ago | torment-nexus.mathewingram.com | Mathew Ingram

— 10 min read Writing about the government's antitrust case against Meta is a little like putting on an old sweater — it's comfortable and worn, but also has kind of a funky smell (maybe it's best for everyone if I don't continue with this metaphor). In any case, I have been writing about this topic off and on for more than half a decade now.
Be careful what you say on social media, part 2

1 month ago | tormentnexus.substack.com | Mathew Ingram

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post for The Torment Nexus that was titled "Be careful what you say on social media, they are listening," which was triggered in part by the case of Mahmoud Khalil, a former student at Columbia University who took part in pro-Palestine demonstrations on the campus. Khalil was taken by agents of ICE — Immigration and Customs Enforcement, part of the Department of Homeland Security — and told that his visa was revoked.