[TangoTrotFox]

A big part of the change has been a mass influx of extremely low information users. In the early years of the internet people that were on it were high information tech enthusiasts. Now we've reached the point that there are more Facebook users than internet users... At least if you ask them [1]. The average level of intelligence on the internet has dropped dramatically.

And I think this is bringing out the predators in mass. Those predators run the gamut from the guy feverishly hacking away in Eastern Europe to the greying man in the 25th story in NYC wearing Armani. Exploiting these people is the latest gold rush. That exploitation could be for financial ends, political ones, or just simply for the lulz. It all makes a lot of the internet very fake. Any community that gains any size starts to experience massive levels of astro turfing and various image management teams (professional and amateur) trying to sway opinion one way or the other.

And then every site has to have voting features of some sort or another. Ostensibly it's about content prioritizing come filtering, yet go look at all of the extremely interesting things that get left to die in "new" even on here. Or the phenomena where something will get submitted 9 times, be ignored, and the 10th time explode. It has very little to do with content filtering. The vote systems are just a tool for growth as it creates an addictive feedback mechanism. But at the same time it also is like a dream come true for those that would like to manipulate or sway others artificially.

Finally there is outrage culture. I'm still not sure if this emerged organically or not, but it's certainly been a drain on the internet. There are lots of people trying their hardest to be offended by anything, and spin everything is the worst possible way imaginable. And since a certain sort of people just thrive on drama, this nonsense spreads like wildfire. Did you hear a coffee shop called the police on two people that refused to buy anything or leave? "OH NO THEY DIDN'T!!?!? THIS WILL BE OUR TIANANMEN!" Or something...

[1] - https://qz.com/333313/milliions-of-facebook-users-have-no-id...