It seems to me that the centralized internet has simply grown to be very popular because most people are indifferent to having their information stored in a cen

It seems to me that the centralized internet has simply grown to be very popular because most people are indifferent to having their information stored in a centralized place. This has not precluded a decentralized internet from existing. (At least decentralized in the sense that it is not run by X mega tech company or NSA controlled.) You can run your own email server, you can run an irc server, we have tor, you can run a server out of your home and serve web pages or even run a reddit clone to organize like minded people. In a certain sense all of this is more accessible than ever. The problem that these people have is that as the internet grew, it expanded to the wider population of non-technical users who had no need or desire for the aforementioned technologies. They are perfectly fine with Facebook and Google and not knowing or caring how it works because that is good enough for them and censorship will likely never be a problem they will have to face. They don't mind the ads because for the most part they are relevant and the privacy invasion that more technically inclined users perceive has no real affect on their lives. The internet has not necessarily closed and centralized, it is just that the centralized closed portion of it has grown very popular while the rest has just stayed small and limited in its appeal.