[Mathnerd314]

I disagree with most of the examples. When newspapers are struggling, for example - it is just that, a struggle. It is not "socio-technical debt". Newspapers in 1830 sold maybe 148 million copies annually, 0.4 million per day. Comparing that to the Census number of 12,860,702, we see that only 3% of people read the newspaper. In contrast daily newspaper readership today (print+digital) is 20.9 million, compared to 333.3 million population, 6.3% of people. Whatever social function newspapers serve, it is clear that they are still serving it. Actually, technical debt is when you don't replace old, crunky stuff - arguably, if traditional news stories make up only 3 percent of social media content, then the social media companies should be figuring out how to refactor their platforms so as to be able to completely replace these old, legacy businesses.

[ipv6ipv4]

In 1830, I believe most papers were weekly. So your percentage is missing a multiplier that could be fairly substantial.

And by 1850 the number of newspapers (still mostly weeklies) nearly tripled with an annual circulation of 500 million.

[Mathnerd314]

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2017/06/01/circulati... says it is at around the 1940's level in absolute terms. If you do per capita it works out to 30% for 1940 vs. 12% in 2015. I think it's safe to assume that per-capita or not, the circulation curve is ∩-shaped. But naturally, the historical timeframe that today's level of news readership is most comparable to is a matter of debate and speculation - all that matters is that it has not yet regressed to the point where it is nonexistent, and the decline/stagnation started before the internet.