My hot take is that prediction markets are pure gambling – worse than memecoins – and I don't think normalizing them is good for society

In pure gambling (roulette, lottery tickets) the cost of buying in doesn't change, so those bets don't reflect the likelihood of an event. I'd say that's enough to mean your examples aren't pure gambling. 

With both prediction markets and memecoins the cost does change with popularity of the token bought. The difference with prediction markets is the incentive to buy and hold to resolution (as that is when you get max payout if correct), where as with memecoins dumping for profit at any point is a rational choice.

Can argue wether most prediction markets are asking useful questions or not, but in general incentivising people to share their opinion has more potential upside than picking a number from a hat.

Can you think of any prediction market you've seen/thought of that may be positive for society?