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It never was an “authentic experience”. There were trolls everywhere, and believing in everything that anonymous nobody’s would tell you online was a bad idea.
Now? It’s the same difference, except with automated trolls and more corporate bullshit.
I’d add another difference: way more idiots. Back in the day, that idea that everything on the internet needed to be taken with a grain of salt was incredibly widespread. It was one of the bedrocks of internet culture, and it’d get memed to death.
Now, the number of people who view everything on the internet as gospel truth has surpassed the number of healthy skeptics.
I think the skeptics have always remained at a constant level. It’s just that echo chambers and the siloing of communities have skewed people’s perceptions of those levels.
The volume - weaponization levels of spew - makes a difference between an average Joe gullibly “charging” their phone in a microwave to the future of nations and their public being undermined.