Ha, I just recently had uBlock Origin remove all HTML elements on news sites that 1) link to comments (in my country this is usually in the form of comment count right after the headline - and typically the comments are printed in red, ugh), and 2) allow me to comment (usually a button at the end of the article).

News comments in my country have really become almost completely pointless. It's ridiculous or even incredible - honestly, you have something like 1 sensible comment out of 30 or 40. Things started to go noticeably downhill during Covid, and it got worse with the war in Ukraine (we are battling Russian trolls over here). In this light, the uBock Origin solution has really worked wonders for me. Having also removed some other "cruft" like content marketing stories etc, I can read news in a calm, peaceful atmosphere again. Not thinking about commenters (dubbed "commentariat" by a witty local intellectual - scornfully hinting to "proletariat", obviously) or commenting at all.

A lot of sites removed even tranquil and harmonious comments sections due to fear of legal liability, and also because moderating them was a cost center. IMDB used to have a comments section where film buffs could talk about cinema, often in much greater depth and competence than one would find on e.g. Reddit today. Lonely Planet had the Thorn Tree forums where one could discuss travel with a real community of fellow travel nerds. All gone.

Beyond the decline of longform text due to phone keyboards, I actually think that the restriction of active communication to a handful of detrimental social-media platforms is a big part of why people report feeling more lonely today. Back when the blogosphere and Phpbb forum ecosystems were healthy, people talked about finding friends around the world online.