I've been using the web since it first appeared and am in my 50's now, so have seen a lot of things come and go. I used to love online communities, niche interest stuff, and just sharing art and ideas. Nowadays most social spaces have been whittled down to much larger, higher traffic sites such as MN, Reddit and of course the usual social media. It's a different world, and there's a lot of us in it!
And I wonder if this is why there is so much hostility and unpleasantness now? It can't just be anonymity, as previous decades were also anonymous, but much more relaxed. I have definitely noticed a fairly swift increase in nastiness over trivial matters, attacks for benign posts, and a sense of animosity and negative presumptions.
With growing numbers of strangers anonymously thrown together in virtual space, maybe this was simply bound to happen at some point?
I've even intentionally sought areas less likely to contain combat or drama and my comments if any are often along the lines of help with houseplants, discussing books, recipes and hiking. Not exactly breaking news. And I still gather some pretty ugly responses.
And oddly enough I don't find MN to be that bad in comparison to most, although it has definitely changed.
I am also noticing other people being insulted for asking friendly questions, many of which resemble road rage attacks, just inexplicable and ill mannered responses that sound childish, or just plain nasty, especially on Reddit.
I know this isn't anything new, but do other people notice it actually increasing? Is the user base younger, more isolated, something like that? I notice what seems to be an entirely new user base across all communities that insults rather than debates. Unlike in real life there don't seem to be any checks or balances, so I imagine a good amount of people will move away from it because of weariness like me, or just carry on diving into the pit.
I found a theory (can't find the quote right now) that suggests around 90% of users on any site are passive readers, with around 8% responding and commenting, and 1% creating the content or posts. This is often touted to prove that 'most' people aren't actually assholes, but who knows 
??
Perhaps I am getting too old for all of this shit.