I'm convinced there's more noise but I'm not sure how much of it is really more signal. Consider growing a potato and searching for that term on Google. I'm betting a lot of articles are going to be somewhat junky SEO spam that's repeating the same few pieces of info. Whereas if you were to go to a garden center or library, and find a book or pamphlet on growing a potato, that's probably going to be great information and very comprehensive, and covers a lot more than those short articles ever do. This generation wasn't without good information. They were consulting things like the Haynes manual for their cars the same as your mechanic does today, or reading on the pros and cons of different truss designs from books available in the hardware store.