I feel the same way. Reading (too much) Medium helped destroy my mental health last year. I was completely taken by the whining and doomerism. I internalised it and crushed under the weight of it. Of course, that was not the sole reason, but it did contribute. I'm trying to find better ways now, both as a reader and as a writer. In the end, the platform can only be as good as we are. I'm not sure we can blame it all on corporate drivers and algorhytms.

As for the "creator-owned content platforms," I think Indi wrote a fantastic piece about it here: https://indica.medium.com/how-napster-marked-the-end-of-the-free-internet-75e752c61f5b

That is the reality, I believe. Even if we do come up with something like that, it will be bought for peanuts and sold back to us for real gold. It happened time and time again.