What is happening, internet?

Well, I wish I could answer that definitively, but I don't think I can. Even having been 20 years on the internet, I can't definitively answer that.
I do have a theory, however. You can disagree with it, maybe you think you understand the world better than I do, which is possible, however, I will lose some thoughts about this regardless.
In light of Discord adding age verification globally instead of just the UK and Australia, while I think that this is being blown way out of proportion in the scope of Discord itself, it does set a dangerous precedent: The fact that companies are ready to collect any bit of personal data in the name of "child safety".

And legislators are being complacent at best, pushing this bullshit at worst.

One must understand, I'm not American. From what I understand of American politics, either side is equally shit and wants to push the exact same bullshit that paves the way for internet mass-surveillance in the name of "child safety", while here in Germany (and perhaps other countries in the EU), the parties that want this are more left-leaning.
While the internet is largely left-leaning, it's not a good look for left-leaning parties regardless, and eventually, people who aren't decisive in their voting tend to now vote for the right wing.
As someone who is not exactly fond of parties like the AfD, this pains me. The internet at large is being overregulated and the only pushback is from parties like the AfD, which is only going to skew future elections in their favor.
I've always considered myself more left-leaning, but with the continuous betrayal and discord within the left wing, I don't know how long I can say that anymore.
I'm not right wing. I'm frustrated with the current state of affairs and what is possibly the death of the free internet as we know it.
But enough of the personal grievances, I want to talk about what I think are the leading causes of free internet death:

Social media

My theory on social media for a while now is that it's a tool that - first and foremost - is being used to spread hate, misinformation and propaganda.
The tactics of manipulation on these platforms are often perfidious and unbenounced to the average person.
This is a big problem for legislators. And ultimately, this is where the overregulation starts: fighting an uphill battle against misinformation on the internet. They think by pushing unenforcable laws that the problems social media has magically go away.
These laws are really ultimately rather ineffective. An American company like Twitter (X if you prefer paint chips over a medium steak) who is in the hands of a right-wing loonie is ultimately not gonna want to cooperate with law enforcement overseas, as he sees it as censorship and possibly communism.
At least with propaganda and misinformation, this is probably the tamest form of overregulation, because while ultimately ineffective, it's content that anyone with a working brain can easily identify and dismiss.
I should mention short-form media as well at this point, as they too are a form of social media, especially if it's Instagram because that's - well - a social platform owned by Meta.
This is probably the biggest trojan horse for misinformation there is, bar none. With the current state of the middle east especially, a lot more content is floating around that can be classified as antisemitic under German criminal law ยง130 StGB.
What's being done about this content? That's right, nothing! Reporting this exact content, as I've heard from users of these apps, is futile, as they typically get devnulled with a response like "This content does not violate our community guidelines".
So basically, hate speech on these platforms is allowed as long as it hits the right people. And that, I think, is the best example as to just how ineffective these laws are.

Parents

Parents, at large, have failed to parent their kids. It's no secret that more and more kids are not playing outside anymore, which has adverse effects on their mental wellbeing going into preschool and immune system.
Instead, they get glued onto phone or tablet screens, causing them to flip their shit whenever that device is taken away for even a split second. The issue in this "style of parenting" (it's laziness, really) is that not only will these kids struggle with life later on in multiple different ways, these parents are also not teaching their kids about staying safe on online platforms that have chat or comment functionality.
The internet, especially platforms like Discord, is full of bad actors. Groomers, manipulators, etc. etc. Not teaching your kids about stranger danger will naturally lead these kids to oversharing rather personal information, because they don't know any better.
And this is what leads us to intrusive age verification like we see on Discord and Roblox. Parents sucking at parenting gives CEOs the perfect excuse to push exactly this bullshit. The legislators in power? "Great, fine, fantastic!"
I think this is how we will feel the death of the free internet the most: Our favorite website or platform will suddenly demand our ID. A piece of personally identifying plastic that is not even required to vote in an election in some countries.
Because if we can't be sure that people on the internet are adults, we treat them like kids instead. All because people who aren't willing to put in the effort to parent their kids are having kids.
Now, whether you have a kid or not is ultimately your choice, but I will at least ask for one thing and one thing only: Please parent your kids. Giving your kid a phone or a tablet is not parenting. Take them to a playground or something. Actually, that probably doesn't even work in the US due to the terrible design of playgrounds there. I don't know, take them outside. Play games with them. Board games. Card games. Find something your kid likes. Anything but Cocomelon or Paw Patrol.
I am asking this because too many parents have failed, and we are seeing the repercussions in the form of overregulation of chat platforms, ranging from surveillance via chat scanning to demanding government-issued IDs. If we can't reverse this, then at least never again.

Closing words

Whether it's a wasted effort in trying to regulate social media or demanding personally identifying information when the platform can't be trusted with such information, one thing is for sure:
The internet is not what it used to be.
It has completely outgrown what it was originally intended for, and whether that's a good or bad thing is up for you to decide, but one thing's for sure: It just ain't what it used to be, and it's not going to get any better the more we become dependent on it and if parents continue to suck at parenting.

Save the internet.