To me, TW was always dead-set against this. My TW was a place where people met up and had events. Where people could post vacation pics or home reno pics and if a License plate or Home address was in the pic, there was no fear of their existence being exposed (and in fact any such action was met with swift justice). Then lines blurred a bit with the whole Jeremy Daspin situation (where TW really first ran into the now rampant situation of "how do we beat someone who just does not get being owned?" (the solution was to "take it to the *NEXT* level" ), and further became murky with the whole nonstop bombing of isuk (k0tz)'s name.
Then it gained some speed, and the community became divided in a weird way. People fearful of nexting simply left or became permanent lurkers, and people who enjoyed it became only more vocal, re-enforcing the ideology of it being both hilarious and acceptable. People with nothing to lose generally flock to it (because they are young and have no responsibilities, because they have shitty lives, because they are depraved or sociopathic, etc), and because they have the most time on their hands, they make it seem like the majority (or in essence it becomes the majority).
This isn't really a TW that I enjoy. It hasn't been for some time, but it's a habit that has been around on and off for.. 11 years or so now? So it's hard to break the ole "check up on TW when bored" or "whore/troll someone to kill some time" etc.
This has been the TW way for a long time. You make it sound like it was only yesterday that people left and nexting was the cause.
Flame4cash was ~9 years ago. Fourstar was ~4-5y ago. Etc.
People left because they grew up. It's been what? 12 to 10 (depending on who you are) years since T1? The few people that did are the exception to the rule.