Why should it scale? People act as if everything is scalable and should scale. And if it doesn't scale something is wrong. This is just absurd mindlessness and has nothing to do with solving an actual (social or otherwise) problem.

It happens more because their skills are more aligned with adding and supporting new racks at the data center, or advertisors/corps are frantically searching to create more artificial digital Real Estate on top of which to put up digital billboards and capture attention.

So you have to be clear about what problem you are trying to solve and for whom.

Also check out the UN report on the Attention Economy. It provides lot of analysis of the space and food for thought on how future social should be designed.