We are Selling Freedom Wrong! And I don't think this problem only applies to Libre Software or the Fediverse. It think this problem is applicable broader. I think the sense of "the end of the world" that a lot of people are feeling right now, comes exactly from this problem. From the bad enshitified software we are forced to use, to the various wars around the globe, to the unsettling uprising of complete political instability. All of that is blamable on the same problem: We are Selling Freedom Wrong!.
Ideally, children would be educated and trained better to think critically; making people harder to manipulate through emotion. But, pragmatically, yeah, marketing/propaganda strategies are useful and even necessary for progress.
Your article made me wonder if there were any theories about ethically appealing to emotion, and I found this (psychological/political) theory interesting: https://semihcakir.com/blog/the-affective-intelligence-theory/. As I understand it, it posits that when people have low anxiety, their thinking is just habitual, but when they experience anxiety, they open themselves up to new information.