small percentage of humans being such massive assholes that turn every new tech into a new avenue of exploiting people ruin it.

It's one of the deep ironies of interconnectedness. We can multiply the impact of positive people but awful people can reach massive audiences too and that's easier as good is often personalised.

Previously you had a few jerks in your local community but now one scammer can robotically interfere with millions of lives. I think this strengthens the awful tendency to assume we live in fallen times or that humanity is fundamentally bad.