>>106568976 (OP)
If I were to blame it on anything in particular:
>smartphones
Being able to access the internet at any time and place is much more convenient, because you don't have to go out of your way to participate in it. In addition to flooding the web with normies, this convenience has come at the cost of encouraging lower-effort participation due to the lower barrier to entry of effort required, and due to just being something you would briefly check on in spare moments of your day.
I suppose another factor here is that it's much easier to become burnt out/desensitized when you're never truly separated from the web and can access it whenever you want.
>social media
Everything has been consolidated into a small number of websites, controlled by an even smaller number of massive tech corps. There's rarely the same variety or sense of discovery because it's all just another facebook page, youtube channel or whatever, and what you find is largely controlled by a recommendation algorithm rather than going out of your way looking for it.
Alternatives do exist like neocities (or just making your own site) but you're also gimping your exposure because the average person isn't going to be looking outside of those same big websites.
>monetization of social media
Being able to make money from posting stuff online is nice in theory because it helps support people making cool stuff, but in practice it's just led to the web being flooded with content farms and AI sloppers churning out the lowest effort trash possible just to make a quick buck. Without this same degree of financial incentive there was a lot more "purity" in it, where people made things just for the sake of making them and showing them to other people.
In conclusion, I would say 2007 was the beginning of the end with facebook and the iphone; it wasn't an instant death of course, but it's been in a steady decline ever since.
Alternatively, maybe I'm just completely wrong and retarded.
