I wouldn't worry too much either way. If your concept is so popular that people are piling onto your Slack, then that's a good problem to have. You're much more likely to be overwhelmed by apathy.

I've been developing for 2/3rds of my life, but still had a bit of a revelation when I saw SOLID and TDD together click into place properly.

I'm not sure how to incite this revelation in other people. I had nearly a decade of people talking about dependency inversion and unit/integration/systems tests and it just kind of washed over me. If there was a way to get these interlocking concepts across to people reliably, it would revolutionise software engineering.

It might be good to just go to the source and read the GoF book.

I wonder if you could do a thesis on the relationship between platform engagement (which a successful debating platform will have in spades) and consumer spending behaviour (ie the part that actually makes it profitable).

In other words, if people argue passionately with one another on your platform, does that mean you can turn that into profit? If so, how?

Very relevant to the modern social media landscape.