It seems a lot like code. You can "vibe code" your way into an ungodly mess, but those who used to enjoy the craft of writing high quality code before LLMs arrived still seem to insist on high quality code even if an LLM is helping produce it now. It is highly likely that internet comments are no different. Those who value quality will continue to. Those who want garbage will produce it, AI or not.

Much more likely is seeing the user base shift over time towards users that don't care about quality. Many a forum have seen that happen long before LLMs were a thing, and it is likely to happen to forums again in the future. But, the comments aren't written for you (except your own, of course) anyway, so... It is not rational to want to control what others are writing for themselves. But you can be responsible for writing for yourself what you want to see!

Reddit was originally just one guy with 100s of accounts. The epitome of writing for oneself.

> upvotes were intended to be used for comments that contributed to the discussion.

Intent is established by he who acts, not he who observes. It fundamentally cannot be any other way. The intent of an upvote is down to whatever he who pressed the button intended. That was case from conception of said feature, and will always remain the case. Attempting to project what you might have intended had you been the one who acted onto another party is illogical.

> The contents of those comments should not be purely self-satisfying, though.

Unless, perhaps, you are receiving a commission with detailed requirements, there is really no way to know what someone else will find satisfying. All you can do is write for yourself. If someone else also finds enjoyment in what you created, wonderful, but if not, who cares? That's their problem. And if you did receive a commission to write for another, well, you'd expect payment. Who among us is being paid to write comments?