Most of the time, I have been a lurker without an account and only bothered to make an account or even log in with said account whenever I had to ask a question or answer something I knew about well.
I like forums and sites where you don't have to have an account to post/reply. However, with the growing issues with bots/sockpuppets/trolls and general troublemaker those beautiful vestige of an old trusting era are getting rarer and rarer (still lively, vibrant and growing as they and new services transitions to local networks/intranet though).
In any case, the internet has always been in constant flux. Nevertheless, I have always adapted myself with the changes and try not to put too many eggs in a single or few services. I usually prefer systems and services I can run/host myself for family, friends and myself.
It's still alive. The anonymous racist trolls are still there, but amazingly there are still some intelligent people with insightful comments to make. The signal to noise ratio is not what it was though.