Democracies need to be running at a small scale. Check out the swiss:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSLs5G4SPP4&t=64s

Of read up on "democratic confederalism" (now used in the north of Syria):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqfoJvD0Ifg

> I mean just think about it. who's in the best position to influence the will of a large amount of people?

With lobbying you do not even have to go by the people, you simply pay-to-play in politics. That's just legalized corruption, thus anti-democratic.

> Recently I've started to think that democracy is never the steady state of any government, it's just a stepping stone to democratic republics and then to oligarchy.

That's an obvious progression if the democracy is highly centralized and lobbyable (or otherwise corrupt).

> technological advances are the only things that seem to truly shake things up

Currently tech it largely "bought", and thus used in the advantage of the capital-heavy. Nature and labor are totally subservient to capital in the current system. A well functioning democracy can turn that around, but they seems to be increasingly less functioning.