Centralization is likely the unintended end result of the internet. Consider a mesh network where all the links have even throughput. Now suddenly one node has some content that goes viral. Everyone wants to access that data. Suddenly that node needs to support a link that’s much wider because everyone’s requests accumulate there.
Someone goes and upgrades that link. Well now they can serve many more other nodes so they start advertising to put others’ viral information on the node with larger link.
Alternatives or not, I think it’d be very beneficial to document concept of operation that you want. That way you can either take pieces of these conops and tell lemmy devs what you want, or if you have your own project this will be its conops and you can guide developers towards features you need.