If the urge, desire and instinct to communicate is universal, but only the means of production have been democratized since the advent of blogging, then I wonder: fifty years ago, what were the people who are most likely to be blogging today doing to express themselves?
I suspect that they were much more locally focused. Writing letters to the editor (because people still read the paper), aligning with community social organizations, being more actively involved in their communities.
So now we're able to form narrowcast tribes across geographic (and even temporal) boundaries. Are we better off? En masse, such connections may leave whole societies better off (Arab spring) but I think that perhaps we won't realize the full benefits until the focus returns to the local. And that won't happen until there's a rise in the locality of the internet.
Think reinvention of the local paper; or maybe a craigslist for the issues of the day.
And that can't happen until the technology is in the hands and power of EVERYONE. Think Kindles (or iPads, or whatever) in a rack at your McDonalds, literally replacing the local paper. Perhaps the biggest advancement here is the price point; but we need to cut that iPad cost in half perhaps 5-8 more times for this access to happen.
When that day hits--the day of the ubiquitous $1 Kindle--then I think we can claim democratization, and we will see a return to locality and the strengthening of our communities.