The invention of the printing press enabled people of relatively modest means to mass distribute their message through pamphlets.
Over the following centuries, that gave us all kinds of innovations and revolutions, like the Reformation and the French Revolution. Some said things that needed to be said, but in many cases, successful pamphleteers didn't feel a need to be fair or accurate.
As the centuries went on, many people decided that the time it took to read a pamphlet was almost always worth more than what they were getting out of it. So, we got book publishers and newspaper proprietors whose key value added was their guarantee that what they were publishing met a minimum standard of value, and people were willing to pay for that because it was better value than reading self-published books or pamphlets, even when free.
If the mainstream Internet follows the same path, it might come to have more in common with MSN of 1996 than with Facebook of twenty years later.
As the centuries went on, many people decided that the time it took to read a pamphlet was almost always worth more than what they were getting out of it. So, we got book publishers and newspaper proprietors whose key value added was their guarantee that what they were publishing met a minimum standard of value, and people were willing to pay for that because it was better value than reading self-published books or pamphlets, even when free.
If the mainstream Internet follows the same path, it might come to have more in common with MSN of 1996 than with Facebook of twenty years later.