Not everyone chose to do that then. and I don't think of it as a golden age.
I wouldn't know how many deliberately chose not to self-promote in that way, but it is probably far more than those who chose to blog.
I think system architecture is part of the present problem, but it is not at the root. Even during your so-called Golden Age the deeper issue was already manifest, though not yet scaled.
Perhaps it would look like that brief golden age when everyone had a self hosted blog and we subscribed to each other with RSS readers.