There is nothing more the internet could actually provide better than what we already have in real life beside the ease of information and the power of sharing that was once limited to entities with powerful presence. Why would we actually like the web and how it becomes big as it is today is mainly because we love free and accessible things.
There is a lot the internet has to give to its wandering visitors. You can name almost anything you wan't and there it is on the web, but most of us can't actually remember when was the last time we searched for something but the web returned with no results.
As for the free things on the web, they come with something as a bargain. And that is your identity. Your data is expensive and people would like to get a hold of it to offer you even more free things, and maybe to offer information about the things they would like you to buy. But what makes the web it is today is the will of people in sharing what they love.
While most things on the web could be amateurish and nonsense, we actually love it!
Internet Vs. The Real World
There is a saying that said "one man's trash is another man's treasure". This applies not only to the real world but also to the internet. On the web for example, with more than a billion websites hosting countless of web pages, in many ways, there are too many of them that are plain nonsense.
We see them once in a while, and whether we like it or not, we stumbled into them from time to time and kept repeating ourselves.
What free internet services want to provide is to deliver contents through technologies. These services resonate viewers because they simply speaks into the human condition. In other cases, they want to be a place (a virtual medium) in which we can access contents that can make us cry, laugh, learn and experience.
They want to extract the bests out of the real world, and giving those to their users in the digital universe. But again, the best aren't what we always expect. Not because internet services have common flaws, but it's because the internet is just full of nonsense. And whether we like it or not, we still love it.
Google, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and many other "free" internet services are examples on how the internet wants to be the place where viewers can immerse their real-world experience to the world they already know. And because nothing is perfect in the real world, we get accustomed to the internet quite easy.
The internet is just a representation of what we are. And the thing we see that is curated unique to us, is a reflection of ourselves.
Data That Powers It
People are exposed to many brands everyday, and each of them is trying to sell you something. What they do, is giving commercial backups to services so they can show you "free" contents. Whether you like the contents or not, and whether they're curated uniquely to you or not, these advertisements are the lubes that kept the gears of the "free" web spinning.
They're powering the "free things" we enjoy, and they're not going anywhere anytime soon.
When speaking about curating things on the web, the internet realized that there are too many contents which you don't want to see. When the internet was still young, there are less to no spams. Today is a different thing. As there are too many contents the web has to show, and when your time matters, a content you see as nonsense is something you'll consider a spam even if it really isn't.
Because of this reason, internet services want your data and some other personal information in order to identify you. This identity is stored with your preferences, and with that internet services can show you what they think are best for you.
Experience Is Number One
When was the last time you browse the internet, the search engines or the social media networks, to find nothing; a blank page with nothing to report and nothing to show? To some, it might be just yesterday, but to most others, they couldn't remember when.
What internet services want to do is to give the best user-experience to their users whenever they can in any possible ways as long as they can, no matter what. This is because user-experience comes first. Without having the ability to give contents, users will flee. And that in turn will repel advertisers in which is the last thing these services want.
Users on the web wants the best, but what they actually want is being given the chance to see things. With that opportunity, they can select what they like whether there is none at all on the list given to them.
People could be disappointed if they don't see what they like, but they will certainly be frustrated if they see nothing. Users are seeking for the best experience, but if they find none, they won't trust the service anymore. Why? Because they think they are incompetent.
The next that comes in mind is accessibility. Then at last comes the quality of the presentation. Sometimes, people see these and even consider them more than the content itself. This paradigm extends beyond the ordinary web to social media and almost anything else that have just about every type of content or experience.
Talking about the web, in many ways, people love options. Whether they found the things they're looking for or not, it would be a lot better than having nothing to see.
User-experience comes best if you have things to show to your users. Let alone having a great design and outstanding feature. If you have nothing to give (for free), your efforts will go nowhere. But if you have something accessible, to some extent in many ways, this will give you a certain value. Some may call your content a garbage, but to some others, it could be a gem.
As a real world example: People will still consider visiting a theater to watch movies that are low on quality with no story and played by actors they have never heard of, instead of having a condition in which they have no theaters at all; They would rather own a cheap "dumb" phone that enables them to text and call, rather than having none at all. People would rather have a crippled leg because of a mistake they did, rather than having no leg to start with.
Something that has flaws, can be expected to become better. But if you have none to start with, you have less to no hope. And if you're actually left with something for that matter, it's just a dream.