I sometimes wonder if it was all worth it. What if we banned/rolled back the internet? Would we go back to more small-town-like community, and again have the nerd minority who "can't wait to get out of this place?" It feels like the current tech landscape is a reaction to that environment.

I would.

And I’m the nerd minority who “couldn’t wait to get out of this place.”

Now, I would still go to a big city where I could find people with similar interests. But the cost to society of all the Internet has wrought has been far too high.