I believe the main reason the internet has turned out this way is because of flawed economic incentives. It's a winner take all game ruled mostly by American corporations. The individual blogger, Usenet contributor, IRC moderator, or open source software creator never got a piece of the cake. As the internet became mainstream, the incentives to engage in these kind of activities vanished.

I hate to be the guy to bring up crypto since it never ends well on HN, but I believe that if the internet had had a "payment layer" that rewards early users from the start it would've turned out very differently.