is there a more efficient alternative that isn’t centralized?

Remember when MP3 players were a thing? Well I still listen to mp3 files, but I can’t put them on my smartphone because manufacturers artificially reduce storage size on phones to force people to use cloud services, and the available mp3 players that accept microSD cards are remarkably bad in many ways. It makes me pessimistic about tech in general, there is no sense of humanism or building progress, that in the future the products will be easier or better. Based on current trends, it seems like in the future the tech will just be more exploitative and consumers are just captive at this point.