"But what about the genuine websites? What about the wealth of knowledge and the intelligent conversations? What about the valuable information for data scientists? What about all things nice?"
Indeed. What about them? When the vast majority of people have a voice then rest assured that intelligent content won't be the top priority. The masses like to conform, aka circle jerk each other in order to reassure themselves. This is also how politics work. The more idiots one can round up and circlejerk against another group the more efficient the campaign will be. We are still apes.
Socialism was never a good idea because of this simple constituent: idiocy. Most people are not necessarily dump. They are just lazy who would rather turn on the autopilot and chase their basic functions that revolve around superstition, getting laid and having shiny things. In other words, willingly stupefied. People are extremely simple and social media do nothing else but exemplify this simplicity and convenience.
With no need to create something of substance, one can easily fake it and create a new persona. This is how everything turns to shit. I would bet you 100 bucks that if you met in person the whales of Bitcoin or Steemit or or or you would pull out all your money ASAP. The reason we are still in it is because everyone is creating a persona that is desirable, not necessarily real.
Nobody can deny that one can find really good content and have intelligent conversations. The problem lies with what one does with that kind of information and knowledge. One can use it to enhance their own abilities/understanding or even create something that will make the world a "better place" (whatever that means).
The point here is to understand the impact of that superior knowledge when applied onto the phenomenon of social media idiocy. Would it matter if we apply a "real" phenomenon in a valley of lies? Ofcourse not. It will get swallowed up and vanish almost immediately. If you are lucky then you might get some criticism but you will soon be forgotten. Aspire to the idiocy and push people's autopilot ego and you are set for success. As more and more people apply this strategy the entire social media space turns into a circus of wannabe pretentious idiots.
And we love it.