Nonprofit versions of vital social tech. If I had the money sitting around, I'd love to start a nonprofit dating site/app. I met my wife on OKC in 2011 before it got bought up and enshittified. It was great and wasn't geared toward just keeping you engaged (they're soooooo bad now!). You'd probably have to gatekeep it with a small fee to disincentive bots, but with a relatively small investment, you could create something really useful for folks without preying on anyone's desperation.
Signal would be a good model for this sort of thing.
I think this might want a clean sheet design. At least as I understand it, there are issues with privacy in the fediverse/activitypub vis-a-vis non-public messages. I think it's also an area where, in order to go the most good, you'd want simple signups and easy engagement (to say nothing of being able to trust that your info has been deleted when you delete it).
Clearly, I'm here and I value the philosophical underpinnings of the fediverse, but I think it might not be the best fit for dating.
That said, if you feel like you can solve those problems, you'd be doing a world of good if you're right.
I've got it downloaded but haven't even opened it lol, I'd have to figure out how to make a dating profile and then I'd have to put a pic of me on the internet which I haven't done in 14yr lol.
"What are your interests"
"Fuck you mean right now? 'Cause I got megaADHD that shit changes sometimes.. I like long walks on the trails and overthinking questions.."