The pre-giant-conglomerate solution to those things was the (lack of) scale. Aggregation and discovery was low-volume stuff like web rings and humble links. A

The pre-giant-conglomerate solution to those things was the (lack of) scale. Aggregation and discovery was low-volume stuff like web rings and humble links. Abuse had a much lower payoff due to the lower scale. Communities were mostly small, and abusers were small. Bigger communities were bigger targets, but could afford to pay people. If ten thousand people wanted to attack one of them, they could, for sure - but people having public discussions on FB or Twitter aren't immune to a group that size either. Scale and centralization hasn't had much benefit there. Monetization is certainly the difference. But is it worth it in its current form? If you want to reach a huge audience, these mega-platforms make it much easier to do so. You don't even have to persuade that many people, if the algorithm picks you up and starts dropping you in people's feed! I'd argue that the blind algorithm-driven promotion is the single biggest problem in the big social media and search platforms (Google, FB, Twitter, even Amazon 3rd party sellers). -- But I think the interesting thing people usually miss is that the old smaller internet is still there, for people looking for niche discussions and communities outside of the huge platforms.