Optimism

This comment by Brian Thomas in Tom Evslin's Fractals of Change is a nice summary of my view of the Internet:

My personal belief here is that given equal exposure, the good generally wins over the bad, and better communication makes it easier for the exposure to be equal, so even though the Internet enables many new ways to degrade, defraud, and deceive people, it also provides new ways to expose evils.

There are many historical examples of this, from the invention of the printing press, then movable type, then telegraphy, telephony, radio, and finally the Internet. Gutenberg did more to break the power of medieval craft guilds and religious authorities, both of whom wanted to keep their knowledge secret.