Social Media Is Changing, and Paid Accounts Are the Response

Slightly off the mark there. This originally started with the proliferation of brand accounts. Social media was considered "nu-media" and thus toxic or or a burden to legacy companies. After smartphones moved social media outside of cliques and niche groups in 2013 a flood of brand accounts started. It was only after this event that the social media platforms themselves shifted away from the "social" aspect and towards the financial one as the legacy companies took notice. Some prominent examples are how Youtube tried hard to push The Late Show With Stephen Colbert during the Trump administration due to engagement numbers from people hate watching to see jokes about Trump, or how the official Wendy's Twitter account came into prominence with the Smug Wendy persona in 2017 causing a massive increase in per user page retention as they scrolled through all the replies (and ads). Individually these brand accounts bring less money than creators native to the platforms, but the sheer number and consistency of them is what makes them lucrative. I think the only ones who've screwed this up are Reddit and Imgur, since brand accounts just aren't a thing that naturally gets cycled into popular content due to how their platforms work.

It will give people a false sense of entitlement.