Do you ever despair at the apparent lack of regard for the "social contract" by so many?
In this case, I'm referring to the notion that we all make minor sacrifices in our daily interactions in service of a "greater good" for everyone.
"Following the rules" would be a simplified version of what I'm talking about, I suppose. But also keeping an awareness/attitude about "How will my choices affect the people around me in this moment? "Common courtesy", "situational awareness", etc...
I don't know that it's a "new" phenomenon by any means, I just seem to have an increasing (subjective) awareness of it's decline of late.
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I feel like I run into microcosms of this in a few online games.
Worlds like Sea of Thieves, The Division's dark zone, and Stalcraft, are built with the idea that "anything goes" - players exist in the same world, with no rule to prevent them killing each other to steal their possessions - and even some decent rewards for doing so.
I actually mostly enjoy playing those games for all the times people don't do those things. I don't despair the moments that betrayal does end up happening - mostly, I just find it wonderous and satisfying anytime we manage to dismiss that possibility and treat each other peacefully.
This could be a poor effort to correlate my interests, but one thing I think affects this issue in places like America is cars. You don't see 20 people out on the street. You see 20 cars on the street. Tinted windows, faceless metal grill. A lot of people have been burned by one poor experience with neighbors taking sidewalks or transit, and so they want to stay isolated in their own protected cabins.
I think the world really relies on chance interactions between strangers, for both parties to learn something about each other and the world - often leading people to "care more" and develop more of that social contract. The trick is, most people DO follow a social contract, but it might only be for the individuals they're familiar with and that they feel similar to. The internet has unfortunately had its ill effects too - people can choose to stay in spheres where people specifically agree with their worldview, and won't ever run into "randomized neighbors" the same way as they would walking down the street.
What you are describing is basically an application of game theory with a single game being played vs multiple games in repeated encounters.
In the video game there is anonymity and single unique encounters: see a player, kill him, loot him, move on. This results in chaos because it is an environment with no stability with everyone for themselves. Same with driving. Everyone has an incentive to drive like a prick to make themselves better off, even though everyone collectively would do a bit better by everyone following the rules.
This is describing a game with repeated interactions where your actions have consequences in games played later.
If you play a game (a single interaction) then your best strategy is to defect, meaning, be an asshole, break the rules, loot everyone, move on.
If you play a game with repeated interactions over and over with the same players (friends, family, colleagues, business partners, foreign policy with other countries, and so on) your best strategy is to cooperate, play by the rules, and do best for everyone.
I participated in an experiment of this during undergrad. Twenty or so of us were put on computers to play a game, something to do with trade. If you defected and broke the rules you could make double. BUT, all the players in the game had complete information, so if you double cross player A, player X would see that and not do business with you. Within a few rounds we had all figured it out, everyone cooperated, everyone traded with each other, and everyone made a ton of money. The few players who were assholes made a good score off the players they cheated, but they made way less than everyone else who cooperated with each other long term.
If you want to read more you should google things like game theory, game theory N person games, prisoners dilemma, nash equilibrium, things like that. This is a good start: https://www.britannica.com/science/game-theory/N-person-games