The one thing that the Internet changed in a very negative manner that ultimately brought us here is -- the expectation that everything is/has to be free. No one wants to pay for anything anymore; people don't want to pay for information; paying for correspondence is just a terrible idea; and so on.

You could control who you interact with, only so far. When no one you know reads the newspaper, while depending on 'social media' for all their opinions, you're going to run into a lot of noise. There's just no escaping it, unless you use this same social media landscape to join some nice new group of intellectuals that actually meets offline.

We just need to start paying for things.