The only thing that has changed is that a new generation of web developers have grown up and started to systematically dismantle everything we did a generation ago to stop these bastards when they nearly killed the open web the first time. We had to sacrifice free/open/unmoderated public spaces because this is how they got in our faces to do their dirty deeds. Spammers, scammers, hate groups, malware providers, and a whole host of other self-interested parties drawn by the promise of infinite/global reach for their message; whatever it might be. We can't go back - the age of innocence is long gone.

Ironically the best anti-abuse tool we had was "buddylists" which later evolved into "social networks" and more recently de-evolved back to where we started. It's more convenient to pretend that everybody can get along in public.

We can't.