There was a time when the Internet seemed to promise the world to the world. When it appeared to be opening up a benign, infinite network of possibilities, in which everyone was enfranchised and newly accessible to one another as they were drawn, in one of Jia Tolentino’s many felicitous phrases, to the “puddles and blossoms of other people’s curiosity and expertise.” It would be a world in which hierarchies in whatever guise would be upended, a democratic forum to rival and exceed the philosophical marketplace of ancient Greece (no exclusion of anyone, not women, not slaves). At the very least, it was a place where, because you could be sure that someone out there was listening, you would find yourself able to articulate the thoughts that, for lack of an audience, had previously threatened to remain forever unspoken, stuck to the tip of your tongue.