No, Internet was always like this (even worse), just there was much less people on it, and expectations were different. Back in the days of USENET there was a lot of quite unpleasant people you'd run into occasionally, but we've seen it as a part of the scene. Like going on a punk concert and someone spills a beer on you or a fight breaks out. It's not nice experience, but it's the part of the show, partially it's what makes it what it is. In my view it's not trolls who are destroying the Internet, but those who are trying to regulate every single aspect of it, instead of teaching people to more self respect and defiance as a way to deal with assholes. And author is right about that one, it will turn all human interaction into a superficial social equivalent of Potemkin villages where we'll be afraid to speak up without 2 pages of legal disclaimers first.