Consolidation and Stagnation

Since the Web3 piece was released, I had initially been trying to find a solution to expanding on providing living wages to more people that don't rely on larger platforms to be intermediaries. As I researched, a clear path forward wasn't clear to me, so I transitioned to think at a broader level. Recently we saw large announcements for acquisitions of Activision-Blizzard and Bungie. These consolidations of large entities are troubling as a small creator. Will we one day have to make exclusivity deals in hopes of insulating ourselves from the costs of creating? Or can we find better solutions so that content can be monetized directly between the producer and consumer?