Social media is indeed not "democratic" - but the reasons that you gave are completely wrong. "Algorithms designed to maximize profit" are a feature of specific social networks - Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok - not the concept of social networks. For instance: Mastodon/Fediverse. Sure, it's not popular at all - but it's still social media without manipulative profit-maximizing algorithms.

So, if anything, the issue is with those algorithms, or specific platforms.

The profit-maximizing algorithms are ad-supported, which means they maximize profit by maximizing engagement time and attention. This means things that don't maximize around those things will inherently be disadvantaged against the manipulative ones (barring regulation against the manipulation or some sort of very unlikely social movement to consciously eschew the manipulative ones). As long as this particular set of incentives are in place, the algorithm problem is going to be a feature of the universe of social networks.

You know there is this one odd argument behind the "deflation is good" narrative.

The problem with the argument is that the assumption is that the economy will just happily stand still and you only buy the things you truly want. We keep our money because there isn't anything we want to buy. The irony behind that is that businesses would become increasingly desperate to sell products to you which means they will increasingly attempt to manipulate you and convince you that you really want these products. After all, the business takes away your valuable appreciating "money" while only giving you a non appreciating consumer good. It is inherently a coercive relationship.

>inherently be disadvantaged

If the only measure of social platform success is $. I'd say the true measure is adoption and the existing players are not on such strong fortifications by that measure. The existing platforms are begging to be disrupted by non-profit or benefit corps. It's not like you would need FB's salary budget to build a more healthy social platform.