The internet is giving rise to even better hand crafted content, not worse. Pick up any newspaper printed at any time and compare the entire thing (every section, every page) to the entire first couple pages of Hacker News links. It doesn't even come close. Most newspaper articles are pure drivel and ridden with ads, while the front page of HN has incredibly well written views on markets, business, technology, finance, etc... One of my favorite sites of all time is dustincurtis.com, a guy so far from cramming out a McDonalds article a day that it is silly.
I agree with you. I think the quantity of craft content has exploded in recent years, with the rise of blogging and with digital content sites displacing traditional media. However, as a proportion of total Internet content, yes, McDonalds content may dominate the pie chart.
I contrast the stuff I regularly read on two of my favorite online (non-tech) content sites, Salon.com and OpenSalon.com, to something like AOL.com's homepage and many of the blogs @ Xanga.com, and I notice a considerable difference in craft. But that doesn't mean the craft stuff isn't out there -- and in much greater quantity than ever before.
That's basically my rule for the web. The average quality of everything on the web is low, but total absolute quantity of high-quality content is higher than the world before the web. That's part of the reason I built my startup, http://parse.ly -- to help people find the good stuff based on their own personal interests.
The internet is giving rise to even better hand crafted content, not worse. Pick up any newspaper printed at any time and compare the entire thing (every section, every page) to the entire first couple pages of Hacker News links. It doesn't even come close. Most newspaper articles are pure drivel and ridden with ads, while the front page of HN has incredibly well written views on markets, business, technology, finance, etc... One of my favorite sites of all time is dustincurtis.com, a guy so far from cramming out a McDonalds article a day that it is silly.