You do not have to. But, there is a considerable cost to shying away from the dominant actors. Adding on top of the existing difficulties... But it probably can be done. It would be very interesting, especially in HN community, to build some entrepreneurial practice around "succeeding without surveillance capitalists organizations". As a parallel to the "succeeding without venture capital" practices that already have been building up (bootstrapping, tiny teams) the last years. We can be the frontrunners.

And how will your alternative get users without advertising? Where are you going to advertise if not Google and Facebook?

Ben Thompson talks about “Aggregation theory” all of the time. The companies that have the power have that power because that’s where the users are.

How do you compete with “free with advertising”?

We talk about how the web killed TV networks. But streaming services are making deals with cable companies to bundle their ad supported tier with regular TV and with their internet only packages. Oh and the largest cable company owns NBC.

When “cord cutters” get rid of pay TV and use YouTube TV where most of the money still goes back to the same providers - how is this any different?

Possibly via organic, physical, viral and direct marketing techniques. I would never try to compete with free. Probably not anything B2C at all, if I were to have avoid the surveillance capitalists as a constraint.