I was about to suggest that a better, more open, and fair form of capitalism would need to be used as a tool...but then, re-reading your comment - "...leverage the power of centralised, professional operations and development, but to govern it democratically..." - i think you better encapsulate what i meant to convey. :-)

That being said, yes, i do believe *in the near/upcoming future* local-first, self-hosting and i will add more fair open source vendors will work! Well, at least, i hope so! I say that because Europe's recent desire to pivot away from the big U.s. tech companies, and towards more digital sovereignty - in my opinion - begins the foundational dependency for an ecosystem that will/could sustain self hosting, etc. The more that europe is able to pivot away from big tech, the more possibilty exists for more and varied non-big tech vendors manifest...and the more that Europe adopts open source, the more the possibility that usage and expertise of self-hosting grows....plus, for those who do not know how to, or simply do not wish to manage services themselves...well, in time i think Europe will have fostered a vast array of vendors who can provide such open source, digital services, but get paid a fair cost for providing fair value/services, etc. ...and, by the way, i say this all as a biased person in favor of open source AS WELL AS being an American. :-)