The alternate path is one the free software community has been pushing towards for decades. The ability to voluntarily associate (and disassociate) from trusted communities, software and communities that works for users and not the other way around, and autonomy coupled with mutual aid/benefit.

Compare the focus of the GNU, Mastodon, Matrix, etc. projects to blockchain world and the fundamental difference is they're not trying to create a world in which we don't trust anyone except a the idea that human nature runs on greed and can be exploited by making us have to pay (spend tokens) for everything.