It depends on how you see it and what you use it for. Democracy over a a span of 1600 years was determined by the rich, elites, those in power from the Greek era to Rome and the crusades and wars. The first time there was mention of direct engagement by the people was when Jean-jacques rousseau wrote The Social Contract in the 18th century and how direct democracy works. US charter adopted it as part of its representative democracy yet very broken communication between ppl and gov't. 19th century moving to the 20th century was when phones were created, postal mails adopted and people's voice was heard a little bit better. Back then all TV's enabled a one direction of message, media was not free. Post the Great Depression, WW2, Beatnik era - the internet rose. The voices of people was better heard but still not enough. Come social media and everything changes. The idea of demonstrations and marches is to show a large headcount that advocates something, but in a lot of countries you get picked up by the Black Marias in no time or sprayed with tear gas (that stings like hell) , and hence having a platform like Twitter gets the voices of the people heard safer, and governments are forced to change their policies to what people want. In my country, Twitter played a big role in persuading the left, and Tik Tok played a big role influencing far right. We have been governed by far right/authoritarian govt for >60 yrs, this is the first we a left govt. There is no left or right or which is better for us, as its the first time we are experiencing some balance.

Skip the above, social media plays many roles in bringing communities together, friends and families (FB), gig economy (Ig, Tik Tok) etc.

There is an undeniable influence on people's obsession with metrics. I understand now the value of zap, but I have always been against metric count. I believe nostr:npub1r0rs5q2gk0e3dk3nlc7gnu378ec6cnlenqp8a3cjhyzu6f8k5sgs4sq9ac brought this up last week but I did not have the bandwidth to respond. Are No of followers needed ? I think you would have to list out the pros and the cons for both before deciding because as much as I am not a fan, populist have been around for centuries and their impact is undeniable. And then you may want to reimagine an environment without populist but with clear separation from socialism, and easing up society into the idea you are aiming for.

Moving forward, having a non restrictive platform like Nostr will ease up on two levels :

1) how government rules and manipulate the people

2) reducing extremism of ideology but enabling both sides to view the other while being in their safe space (preferred client, selected relays)

from a philosophical perspective, Plato in Republic 7 has a good explanation on opening up society's mind. But to really understand the power of communication, Aristotle would be your guy. Hope this helps!