The USA/West-EU countries make up about 12% of the world’s population, yet have about 80% participation on Reddit. Statistics do not differ much for other sites, as I used to have a decent non-anonymous tech blog years ago, where Google and WordPress offered me similar statistics of 70-75% of the visitors being from the Anglosphere.
Is it because the citizens of these countries are drenched in individualist capitalist societal culture, and easier access to fast internet? What else could be the reasons, and cultural cues?
I have felt that it is the core reason for this chaos and toxicity on the internet, where this very kind of immoral self-centered culture became a virtual hegemony over the decades.
It is a thought that strikes my mind often, as someone from India/Asia, and there is almost non existent discussion about this anywhere.
I can give an insight from within
So most of third world countries (non-western) have had wide internet penetration only so lately, unlike western countries they have missed what is to me the golden age of the internet (late 90s to late 2000) i.e before the facebook era. they have missed the era where people used to blog and when genuine content was to be found on websites, blogs and forums. most people who have joined the internet lately have done so using smartphones. and their first entry point to the internet is the playstore, google apps and facebook apps.
I kid you not there are people who don’t know that the internet exists beyond those apps, they don’t know how to use a browser, and they show no interest in doing so. facebook has absorbed the huge masses of these netizens and has widened its offerings to the point that people don’t need to wonder out of those apps to find what they need. In most of these countries, there is no internet neutrality, ISP(s) offer very cheap plans bundling unlimited and un-metered access to facebook whatsapp messenger and youtube. most people have turned into content consumers and show no interest in making contributions if they don’t make the buzz or bring them followers and interactions.
I know that, as an internet dinosaur myself in India. I have my Apple cousin that thinks my Linux ThinkPad is a control command battlestation (yes those are his words at 18 age).
That is pretty common here in the Canary Islands between medium and old people and certain young ones with little studies or very centric in something specific.