> I wonder what sorts of social media we'd see if it wasn't dependent on selling ads.

This is why I got interested in Gemini. It's a modern take on Gopher and the network already has a lot of folks posting content and sharing ideas completely free of the normal commercial goals you see on most http sites. I even made a small Twitter clone, Station, which has about 260 users right now. If you're a Gemini user, come hang out: gemini://station.martinrue.com