The solution to empowering individuals is accountability. We should be given tools that let us keep each other in check. Checks and balances are the basis of democracy itself. The web should be governed, with a constitution and a set of evolving laws commissioned by an educated, well-informed citizenry.
Decentralized networks are the very definition of muddied, lawless waters that are only capable of serving an oligarchy. Libertarians tend to think that lawlessness equals individual liberty, but they are sorely mistaken, because oligarchy is tyranny, even when it's dressed as a free market economy or today's web, both are controlled by a handful of companies that blindly chase their short-term interests throwing you, your rights and your future under the bus.
The bottom line is that we need a system that incentivizes people to plant trees under whose shade they will never sit. That's the soul of a democracy, and that's how you build the future of the web, not by bringing it back to lawlessness. Despite what nostalgia tells you the 90's web sucked too, only people with a specific background, education, and middle-upper income were truly a part of it. The hacker culture back then was really just a bunch of rich kids playing with their expensive toys. The same people later went on to create our beloved tech companies, which explains a lot.
I also think that most decentralized projects exist not for their touted merits, but because the rest of the market is saturated. Amazon and it's cohorts already own everything, so now we have a bunch of venture capitalists drooling for a new space to exploit, but they have to exploit it fast and hard because most decentralized projects are unable to provide any actual value. You can only woe people for so long with promises, except if you manage to create a religion, which is definitely one of the goals here. Tap into those post 2008 fears and lack of trust, the inequality, climate change and all the misery and play people like the fiddle. Worked for the conservatives and libertarians like a charm, granted they worked hard on destroying our institutions so they can claim that they are not working. Oldest trick in the book.