As Ia genz I can say that the internet help me learn english, programming and before that I got an advertisement freelance business that took me out of poverty. What got me into these were videos recommended by youtube or something.

This was true even 30 years ago.

What changed is how the mainstream internet looks like. I could find spaces where there were every kind of people (like my home country’s subreddit) due to their size, and money didn’t drive anything. Now these are even actively manipulated. I haven’t found a single new space in a decade which is generic (different kinds of people from every segments of the populace), it’s content not driven by money, and its topic is not focused, but generic. In other words mainstream spaces without the influence of money.

Nowadays, I can find such spaces only which are very limited in size or reach. And this means that it’s way more difficult to find them.

Also, there was an obvious exodus of smart people from public spaces. Who I followed on Twitter a decade ago, almost nobody left on the public internet. And no, most of them left before Musk. Or they went anonymous, but from my viewpoint it’s the same: there is no way to know what they think, what they know.