This guy must be talking about a different net...
"We didn't want to play games." Sure we did. People play games in real life too. Games can be a way to exchange information. There is more to the net than just playing games.
Drama and angst and all the other stuff comes with open conversations.
Freedom from oppressive governments? I guess he missed the news on some of the recent government overthrows, and how twitter and the net has played its part.
Browsers aren't the only way to access the net.
It wasn't supposed to turn out like this? How was it supposed to turn out?
Who is "we" in this statement? Who meant for the internet to turn out, or not turn out, any particular way? I've been around the internet a long time, and I don't remember any such master plan. It just evolved, because a lot of people with a lot of different agendas nudged it this way and that over a time span that involved lots of technical and economic changes. Evolution doesn't have goals. It only has directions.
Instead of feeling nostalgic for a world that never was, how about if we work forward from where it already is? What incremental changes would make it better?
People using stack overflow either want answers to their questions, to help others, or to showcase their expertise. "Exchanging information" is barely a mechanism for that, but never an aim itself.
Funnily enough, stack overflow is heavily gamified: part of the incentive for answering questions is to increase your score and earn medals.
It wasn't supposed to turn out like this? How was it supposed to turn out?