When Did The Internet Get So Ugly?

When I started using the Internet in 1990's, with the exception of flame wars, spam haters, academics vs commercial users, everyone was rather nice and polite to each other. End-users were nice to end-users. ISPs (and there were only a handful) were informative and easy to work with. It was almost Nirvana.

But it's now 15 or so years later, and the landscape is full of ISPs. Some who are highly technically proficient, others that should be shot! And we're not nice anymore. In fact, we so deeply imbedded in double-talk and denial, that we are a microcosm of today's society. Case in point: A few months ago, one of the servers that houses a Web site I work on became unreachable. I, as Yogi Bear was fond of saying, am "smarter than the average bear!" and so I figured I would do some troubleshooting.

Long story short, I found the error was the router sitting right before the server (the server is housed on a Business DSL line). After going through three different companies, and experiencing irritation every step of the way, I landed at Verizon's footsteps. Needless to say, several hours later, and after 20 phone calls, I finally connected with somebody in a supervisory position.

When told I had figured out (and then he confirmed) that the router needed to be re-booted, he said thank you, but he couldn't do anything. That's right! He agreed that my presumptive diagnosis of a re-boot was correct, but he couldn't do the re-boot, enter the problem into their trouble system, nothing, nada!

It seems that since I wasn't a "customer", they couldn't help me, even help themselves. If this wasn't the height of stupidity, nothing in this world is.When did the Internet get so ugly??? And, more importantly, why?