Has any communication system managed to do that? Once certain types of people catch the scent of profit, they tear the medium apart searching for every penny of it.
Letters became junk mail. Email became spam. Newspapers and magazines became mostly ads and shilled content. Television became for-profit news and reality content.
That authenticity is just going to make it more appealing to astro-turf.
we need to shitpost more. a neighborhood that is high in crime does not appeal to advertisers. like north korea, they live in paradise whilst convincing the rest of the world that it's a shithole.
ah i guess that's in the process of changing. you can see this happening right now. more right-wing memes, more "look at this cool movie/toy/outfit... i found. it's really me, a normal human being just like you!"
Seems extremely unlikely. There's very little reach on here compared to elsewhere. It's not easily quantifiable nor can it be easily verified. It's extremely easy to hack metrics. There's no business sense to pay someone for posts on the fediverse yet. Don't be paranoid and don't become conspiratorial.
Edit: added "yet" because those things could possibly change.