> it was called a mass-market newspaper, and it wasn't all that bad.
I actually doubt that. Sure, there were social advantages to having a smaller body of reading material that most literate people had read. But the Internet allows us to do two different but important things: truly democratize editorship (like reddit), and enable niche editors to easily distribute their content (like slashdot, slashfilm, or techcrunch).
Doesn't stop the fact that I'd get more satisfaction out of reading the New York Times (or even the New York Post) than browsing the front page of reddit.
Oh look, a picture of a velociraptor with a caption. And someone's cat. A terribly-drawn cartoon about why console gaming is better than PC gaming. Someone else's cat. Another cat. I'VE SEEN CATS BEFORE, PEOPLE!
I actually doubt that. Sure, there were social advantages to having a smaller body of reading material that most literate people had read. But the Internet allows us to do two different but important things: truly democratize editorship (like reddit), and enable niche editors to easily distribute their content (like slashdot, slashfilm, or techcrunch).