This was a question I was pondering this morning as I thought about the current pandemic, how things will be different in future, and how national leaders everywhere have slightly different levels of approach.
After looking at a few search results which were all scholarly monologues I came across this discussion on Quora and I forgot about my question as I was swept away by a series of very well thought out responses along with references. No trolling, emotional politicking or abuse, etc. I cannot remember when I last saw any thread like this on our modern Internet that included commentators from completely different cultures.
Most "discussions" seem to descend into trolling and politics with all the more sensible discussion completely lost as those commentators withdraw. I myself also find I start to make a comment on some forums and then just decide its not worth it, and delete my comment. So yes we do likely see the Internet "empire" as we know it also having passed its ascendancy and likely descending into something that will have to change. Too much uninformed discussion, emotion, abuse, etc is not solving real problems or finding best outcomes. Like any debate there needs to be ground rules but on the Internet we very rarely find that. Its like a democracy that can also be abused if we don’t stick to the written as well as unwritten rules to run it effectively. Democracy can be corrupted just like any other system… we saw it in South Africa with the Guptas…