Sure - there were lots of people crowded around a similar spot at sunrise. It's Angkor Wat, and seeing sunrise there is the kind of thing that most people in attendance are going to do once in their lives. It would be in most travellers top ten things to do before you die list. People are going to want to take photographs.
Did the presence of other people there massively ruin the day for me? No. When sunrise is over, you have at least six hours to wander round the temples completely uninterrupted at your leisure.
If you so choose, you can come back in the afternoon when there are far fewer people around. Do I get an awesome amount of pleasure from looking back at my photos of Angkor and sharing them with friends and family? Yes. Do most of my photos even have me in them at all? No.
It's really impossible to hold the details of an experience like wandering round Angkor in your head for years to come. I'm not going to remember the detail on a specific bas-relief, or the view I got from the top of a specific temple in years to come. Having photographs of these things really helps in that regard and enables me to 'revisit' any time I want.
This is yet another judgy, post-intellectualizing Medium piece whose purpose isn't communicating any particular point but garnering clicks and attention for the author. You really think Instagram ruined your trip to Angkor?
Did you really take the decision - faced with an absolutely awe inspiring monument at sunrise - that the best use of your time and resources was to take a judgmental photo of the people around you? Get over yourself.