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> Have you noticed that those discussions weren't common before people adopted GitHub?

This is objectively not true.

They were common, just not as visible. If you knew which mailing lists to be on, you saw all the same stuff.

It was much less. Github is a social media, it has the like/dislike button

If you used those mailing lists often enough you had a kill file so you could filter out those who were intentionally disruptive.

I think the negative contribution from Github is the "gamification" of development. Stars, in particular, are emblematic of this problem, as it grants a measure of "apparent quality" yet it's not safeguarded in any way at all so now it just measures "apparent popularity."

The mechanisms you have to employ to be popular are almost diametrically opposed to those you have to do to write quality code.

Usenet was much worse, the way I remember it.