We share the same concerns. The ad-model, any business model where the users aren't paying for their lunch, will lead to enshittification. It's heartbreaking to see how easy it is to make a community turn on (report) each other, how banal / normal the people who thrive on doing that are, "the people who point at witches". Show them a picture of a witch (provided conveniently by your advertiser-partners) and see the toxic fire spread.

I think of these pointer people like our immune systems T-cells, their job is to hook onto "bad guys", show them a picture (vaccine) of one and they make sure you never see a nazi/polio again. So i have sympathy for these people. Though thanks to ad-model businesses, they mostly cause auto-immune responses.

As for how to encourage non-toxicity. Your guess is as good as mine. I think stacker can overtake reddit and hacker.news within a year if they play it right. Users are not the product on this site. This is the way to do it. Just need to lobby apple to allow zaps to people (or solve that through a apple-gated sidechain). It'll explode.