Do we trust ourselves? Will we make the world a better place as a result of this power? I'm hesitant to answer this question. I know developers that I would trust my life with, however, it just takes a few bad apples to mess everything up.
Solution? It would be great to revive the old cyber-optimism of the 1990's when everyone thought the Internet was going to save the world. The "twitter revolutions" come to mind, but that narrative is pretty shallow.
For people to take a stand and hold under temptation for money and power, they have to have something they can believe in.
No, we're getting far less control and power, compared to the free-for-all of the Internet's early days. SOPA is just one example of longstanding power structures extending their control over engineering domains.
In the real world, the people with the guns win. Sometimes it takes time for them to realize the importance of new technologies, but eventually they win. Always.