The advertising/panopticon funding model is turning this timeline into a dystopia worthy of George Orwell. Because of algorithmic tuning to optimize "engagement", the promise of the internet has been turned into a dark pattern instead.
We can run our own servers, curate our own sources of information, and build reputation networks, in spite of the overall trends. The key difference is to do it for any reason other than profit.
Another weakness of the evolved systems is the whole "Up/Down" voting system that happens everywhere. When you force everything into that single dimension, you waste almost all information that can be gleaned from someone who has just spent their attention on something. I think that we need to have systems that can vote with vectors. Something can be funny, technically wrong, and insightful all at the same time... wouldn't it be nice to be able to learn those things?
Also, a pet peeve - HTML doesn't allow the Markup of Hypertext. It actively works against the idea of a Memex, a thing we still don't have 80 years later. 8(
Re: the alternative of the Up/Down system, the only big one I have seen succeed is the Steam reviews community. There is a Helpful vote and a Funny vote, this system seems mostly to work to be able to quickly filter out all the low effort and joke reviews. I wish they would add this to a platform like Letterboxd too, because there you need to scroll through so many jokes before you find an actual insightful review someone shared.