alt Hacker News> Comment sections - encouraging pile-ons, and vitriolic debate
The early millennium blogosphere had comments sections, and lots of vitriolic debate. They inspired XKCD 635, after all. I think the problem today is not the opportunity to comment and debate, but rather the fact that the phone keyboard is the input device for the majority of internet users. Population-wide, phone keyboards discourage longform text and nuance, even if some individuals will claim they can comfortably type just as much as on a physical keyboard.
It's crazy how much vitriol there is in local newspaper websites, and this is something that's been going on since the 2000s indeed. It wasn't just flamewars, it was law breaking stuff.
A bunch of the local ones that were super vitriolic just started removing them 5-10 years ago. Godspeed.