The old internet shows signs of quietly coming back

This is wishful thinking. The demographics of the internet have changed so much that you will NEVER get that 'old' back. You may get an imitation or evolution of it, but it will never return in full.

The size of social media now is so gargantuan that almost every single member you get in an independent community will have been molded by it in some way, which is very different to how the webcultures of the day functioned.

My experience running a small community post social media explosion, is that most newcomers want to treat it like Twitter - Personal Edition. They want to engage in recreational outrage. They want to be obsessed with America-centered identity politics and put down other people for not joining 'their' side.

It's a far cry from the types of people I once met online. There is no sense of "The internet is not real life.", because, for so many of them, their internet handle is their real life identity, and any joke against it is a strike against their moral fabric and an attack on their very being.

Content focus certainly changed as barriers for entry got lower. In classical TV there was certainly a degradation towards low production costs and simple content in the last decade. But it is still profitable even with a shrinking pool of viewers. I expect the fate of some mass social media platforms to be that same. Some people will always remain there.

I don't know when we started to take internet comments seriously, I only know that I don't like that at all.

>their internet handle is their real life identity

I feel like the west forgot how to be pseudo-anonymous on the internet. If you take a look at Chinese or Japanese internet users they still mostly prefer distancing their meatspace self from their virtual identity.