Society, in general. In essence, Shakespeare aims to say we are all just pretending in front of other people, like a facade. We will have our moments and our downs. The “one man pays many parts” can be how a person can pretend to be something they are not to get others to like them. Like trying to fit in one group, you’ll pretend to be into what they are or etc. Can be applied in the dating scene, friendships, work and other forms of social life.
That author believes that the situation is without hope, so he was no reason to continue one.
I would say that it is the job of those who use the internet research ie such as authors to evaluate the credibility of the information gleaned from there and one way is to identify the source ie to verify it say a magazine that is a legitimate entity by calling it or say by asking someone one knows about the validity of the facts one has gathered to confirm them or at least part of them as a sample to test the validity of the whole information. Checking more than one source is a good idea too to corroborate information if much the same answer is obtained from say 2 or more sources it probably has more credibility.
