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I started lurking on a couple of my old favorite subs back when Lemmy (0.19 and 0.19.1) broke federation, and I eventually gave up.
One is the local sub for my small city. It used to be the best way (other than face-to-face) to discuss local news and issues with peers. I don't know if I had rose colored glasses on then or if it's just turned vile, but the sub has an undercurrent of hate and xenophobia now. It's like Nextdoor but without the geofencing.
Here's what I think has happened/is happening:
When the Internet was new, it was mostly the younger, chiller people.
The Internet started going mainstream in the 90s, and now you have all the older people online who are retired and have nothing better to do that shit their racism and misogyny and bile out into a forum where they will get a couple thumbs up and that, to them, is huge validation.
They told us forever that the Internet was a bad and scary place, and when they realized that wasn't true, they showed up to make it one.
Heheh....I hate to break it to you, but it's not just old people who have nothing better to do than shit out racism misogyny and bile.
And I think this is how every new tech goes. I mean, the community here still seems much more civil because we're smaller in number.