It's unfortunate, and I don't necessarily want to say decentralization isn't viable at all. But I only see decentralization at best address the issue of scraping. It's solving different problems without necessarily addressing the core ones needed to make sure a new community is functional. But I think both kinds of tech can execute on addressing these issues.

I'm not against subscriptions per se, but I do think a one time entry cost is really all that's needed to achieve many of the desired effects. I'm probably in the minority as someone who'd rather pay $10 one time to enter a community once than $1-2/month to maintain my participation, though. I'm just personally tired of feeling like I'm paying a tax to construct something that may one day be good, rather than buying into a decently polished product upfront.