Maybe it's up to us* to keep up a "nice" trend. It follows from the golden rule philosophy that one would want to be polite and respectful to other people as a default, rather than as an exception to the rule. It just doesn't seem like that is the case anymore though.
*Those who know me are spitting coffee onto their computers right now. I'm not saying that it will be easy for me to be absolutely nice to people all the time, but I should be allowed to dream, shouldn't I?