> There has alwasy been a small segment of people able to make a life that way

This is the same with the move from mechanical to thinking. There was always a small segment of "thinkers" for everyone else, it was secondary to their mechanical abilities.

What has me thinking now is, if this is true, when we figure out how machines can be social, do we unlock another element of humanity which we don't recognize or appreciate yet?

If most of the money is made from renting servers, the manufacturers will only rent servers. They have nothing to gain by cutting themselves out of the revenue stream and introducing a secondary market.