What if the reason everything seems the same since 2006ish is what if we have been plugged into a Super AI that runs every computer in the world (that's not private) and control the flow of money and entertainment hence everything being recycled garbage and investors not caring when usually if something bombs they'll pull out and not repeat that.
In the 80s and 90s if something bombed they'd want to know why and/or not do that but now they just keep making the same shit and usually drop what's actually successful! It's like they now pick the worst of the worst and make it the new normal.
If most of the stuff released today happened in the 80s I can guarantee it would've not sold well and if sold in the 50s/60s during the Technicolor era fans would've destroyed the theaters in protests or at least come close to. They would NOT be silent like today where they complain a little bit online then buy the next stupid shit which I am going to do another post about on that.
Forums died off because the format doesn't scale well for large user bases.
The nested comment thread format is just a better format for many communities.
Websites became shitty mostly because they became easier to create and emarketing incentivized low effort content.
Before the internet was so heavily monetized the incentive was the sharing of information and content itself.