I disagree. Our brains have expectations, evolutionary speaking. They don't care about the size of our communities, I think. Our brains still expect you to climb the dominance hierarchy; it will give you a dopamine boost when you do so, and a shot of cortisol when you degenerate.

I think that mediocrity is a bad thing and that the internet promotes progress. Yes, you have to be better now to be noticed, and yes, chances are that, now, most people give up, but isn't this a kind of social natural selection? If you give up because of, say, HN critics, you should improve.