Exactly because the internet is used by more people than ever. On one side, the bad guys find it increasingly difficult to hide their misbehaviours, to which they react with crackdowns; on the other, the average person is now so swamped in information and things to do/watch/read, that his or her appetite for old-school organizing is vastly diminished (politics is slooooow, terribly boring, usually frustrating and occasionally humiliating).
Observer bias
Indeed, we live in a time of unprecedented democracy. But confirmation bias reigns supreme, people read from news sources which confirm their preconceived notions of the world. The Hacker News community is as susceptible to this as anyone else.