The real question is do you want fame and industry class "success" (ie, your game sells millions) or do you want to be creative. Terrible example, yada yada, but Minecraft is still being sold from the Mojang site where the company (and originally Notch) gets 100% of proceeds.
If you want to see millions of people play your games, with millions of copies sold, with front page storefront ads, then yeah, you sell your soul to the entrenched interests. But you don't have to play their game - you just need:
1. An Audience who likes your content. 2. A way to eat as a result of that content.
Really, the obvious answer is the audience plays patron as the article denoted funder. That, in the long term, is the macroscopic way this is all trending anyway.
And I'm not talking kickstarter style get-a-bunch-of-money-at-once-and-blow-it-all. I mean you have an (open) product, put it out there, advertise it however you want (personally or outsourced) and hope that those that experience it think its worth continued funding.
Also, metaconsoles is kind of a misnomer - you have a platform spectrum, from open accessible platforms to walled gardens with padlocks. On one side, you have the wild west of self-hosted downloads for free platforms like Android (without the play store, think fdroid) or desktop Linux, and you progress from there through Windows, the Play Store, OSX, and finally the iOS / old console locked down ecosystem where you need a developers license, development tools from the source, etc.
Yeah, Steam is barely better than a console - they act as gatekeeper and takes a huge cut - but on the platforms Steam supports, you at least have the option to use other platforms as well, like gog, the humble store, desura, or self hosting. When there is whole stack lock down like on the traditional consoles and iOS, you are literally praying at the alter of the corporate owner that they give you a blessing.