I think you are missing the elephant in the room. As you say, social media speeds up the process, but what causes it?
Think of society as an organism, say fauna. Government, as the executive and regulatory function, is analogous to a central nervous system, while money and banking are analogous to blood and the circulation system.
In fairly stable times, government can afford to be somewhat broad based, but under stress, it tends to become focused and that reverts to forms of autocracy. Which codified itself as monarchy, basically hereditary oligarchy and so remained focused on the leader at all times. Obviously this didn't work so well over time, so forms of public governance evolved as an alternative tradition.
The problem is that as the wealth circulation mechanism, money and banking are analogous to blood and the circulation system, which remain in private hands. Giving it the advantage over a political system that can only function around the time span of election cycles.
As the value controlling system, without an effective decision making process, it reverts to basic appetites and desires, aka, greed. So it has all the strategic aptitude of bacteria, without even an appreciation of petri dishes.
Now markets require money to circulate, while people, being basically linear, goal seeking creatures, see it as signal to extract and store. Requiring ever more to be added and ever more metastatic methods of storing what has been extracted.
Econ 101 states money is both medium of exchange and store of value, yet one is dynamic, while the other is static. Blood is a medium, fat is a store. Roads are a medium, parking lots are a store. The hallway is a medium, the hall closet is a store.
The medium has become the message.
The functionality of money is its fungibility. We own it like we own the section of road we are using, or the air and water flowing through our bodies. It's not our picture on it, we don't hold the copyrights and are not responsible for its value, like a personal check.
It is the quintessential public utility.
Given that it functions as a contract, with the asset backed by a debt, storing the asset requires generating the debt to back it. So all of society becomes designed to generate debt, in order to create the illusion of wealth.
For instance, back in the day, people would raise kids and be taken care of in old age. Now the old have pensions and the young have endless debt. Not to say the system is wrong, unless it is being exploited, which happens all too easily.
Another way debt is generated, is having government as debtor of last resort. The capital markets could not function, without the government borrowing up trillions in surplus investment monies. This also is not objectively bad, but without proper understanding and controls, the money is easily diverted and wasted, such as militaries more designed around wealth extraction, than any actual strategic goals.
The fact is there isn't the investment potential for everyone to individually save, but we do save for many of the same reasons, so the premise of the public commons could be resurrected.
The problem this poses, is that rights have to go hand in hand with responsibilities. The Tragedy of the Commons is when everyone has rights, but responsibilities are optional.
Considering our current culture is all about universal rights and responsiblities are for the government, parents and churches, this is a long ways away.
Though the mother of all reality checks is in the mail.
