Actually the opposite is true.
http://www.cavebear.com/cavebear-blog/internet_quo_vadis/
This article by Karl Auerbach, former member of the board of directors of ICANN and the developer of TCP, suggests that the internet is moving towards a divided future along linguistic, cultural, religious, corporate and regional lines, or the so called "internet of islands." What Facebook and Reddit are doing is simply proto-Island building.

Here to ten years... Probably the same, but there will be another popular social network that either Google or Facebook will own.

About 4chan, Reddit or Tumblr being ruined by the high flow of new users: these forums have miscellaneous sections (such as /b/ in the case of 4chan, or /funny/ in the case of Reddit) and themed sections. I wouldn't classify miscellaneous as "valuable and original content", not now, nor in the past, nor ever. I think that valuable and original content always took place in themed sections. In 4chan's case, it's hardest to tell because almost every board nowdays is about miscellaneous topics (for instance, the actual /v/ "what videogame character would you fuck" vs the original /v/ "could you recommend me some more games like this", or "guys let's make a game"). In the case of Reddit, there are still many themed sections with valuable and original content. I really have no experience with Tumblr whatsoever, but I'm guessing it's the same. The problem is miscellaneous sections are alaways way more active and popular than the themed sections with original and valuable content, these tend to be slow, and unpopular. Even here in BaI we see that problem. It's our main problem right now, actually. So I don't really think that 4chan's themed boards were ruined because the widespread of the site. Instead, I would say it was ruined because miscellaneous content overwhelmed themed boards with mediocre content.

Whatever happened to 4chan wasn't because of social media or anything. They've always looked for scapegoats; first it was Gaia and Ebaums, then Tumblr, now Reddit and, more recently, mobile web browsing (seriously). Hell, I remember in 2005 a lot of people already considered /b/ an incredibly shitty place.

4chan was bound to "fail" from the start. moot was fucking 15 years old when he decided to use his mom's credit card to register 4chan.net, and all he wanted the place for was dumping hentai for ADTRW and having a custom email address. Seriously, the first TEN boards were all for porn, and after all that he decided to add one for actual discussion (/a/).

Meanwhile 2ch from the beginning was supposed to be an anonymous forum for discussion of all topics and allowed people of all kinds and ages, and despite only allowing people from Japan to post and all the fuckups Hiroyuki did in 2013, it still manages to get three times as many posts as 4chan (between 2,500,000 and 3,000,000 posts each day; 4chan only gets 900,000-1,000,000 a day).

About the future of the Internet? Maybe more people will realize social media sucks and we'll see an anonymous forum renaissance (because 4chan fucked it up for everyone on this side of the planet).

>Maybe more people will realize social media sucks and we'll see an anonymous forum renaissance
Well, for the time being Snowden's sacrifice, and even Assange leaks haven't had that deep effect on internet culture. People are still bound to social networks and online services that clearly spy on their users (like Amazon, YouTube or Gmail). And piracy is another critical point, everyday is hardest to pirate on internet. I don't think that KAT, TPB or Putlocker will survive up to ten years.

I'd really like diaspora*, Dailymotion and Signal to replace Facebook, YouTube and Whatsapp. Or whichever the service is, it doesn't matter. I'd just want to see those fuckers burn to death.

Lad, if that's all it took for people to "wake up", we'd have reached class consciousness long ago...

People don't even care when you show them a video of a police officer shooting an unarmed civilian.

>>7
That's because the media likes to repeat this meme of "unarmed civilian" whether the facts add up to that conclusion or not. If someone (who is mentally of sound mind) goes and attempts to punch out a cop and steal his or her firearm, then I cannot feel much sympathy for them if they end up getting shot in the process of doing so. They either wanted to commit suicide by cop, or were really that stupid in thinking that they were going to get away with it. If I cared about mainstream media narratives, then I wouldn't be hanging around on Websites like this.

Uhm, if they want to pull a "suicide by cop" they need to get psychiatric help, not get shot.

I also wish for the "unarmed" civilian meme to die. If you're of average strength, a well-built 17 year old can tear you limb from limb with his bare hands if you don't shoot him as he attacks you.

Hey, me too! All those people I've seen getting shot by cops even though they weren't carrying any weapons had ALL limbs!
Crazy how the mainstream media manipulates us, huh?

>>9
>they need to get psychiatric help, not get shot.
If so, yes, but under the law in most states (excepting maybe Florida with its famous "Baker Act") most people cannot be forced to go under involuntary commitment. There's also the problem with judges who will release a person even against the medical advice of professionals.
>>10
>If you're of average strength, a well-built 17 year old can tear you limb from limb with his bare hands
You'd be surprised some of the 17-year old kids that play on the High School (gridiron) football team, they often look double the size for a normal 17-year old and double their ages. Not to mention if they're trained in some kind of martial arts which can seriously injure (if not in some cases, even kill) a person.
>>11
>All those people I've seen getting shot by cops even though they weren't carrying any weapons
That wasn't the case in the recent shooting of Keith Lamont Scott in Charlotte, North Carolina. He was armed and refused to drop his weapon when told to do so multiple times.
>Crazy how the mainstream media manipulates us, huh?
I take it you've never read Manufacturing Consent by Chomsky and Herman.

>He was armed
Then there's no point addressing my post about unarmed civilians, huh? Which was a joke, anyway.

>>13
>Then there's no point addressing my post about unarmed civilians, huh?
On the contrary. The narrative of people being shot by police (even if the facts prove otherwise) while being unarmed is so widely accepted without question that it in fact actually bears addressing for precisely that reason.
>Which was a joke, anyway.
Nice backpedaling there.

Looks like 4chan might finally die now

Looks like 4chan is actually going to die now