You're absolutely right! We could search for funding models, plural, to support a network of federated and distributed platforms! We could even couple it with w

You're absolutely right! We could search for funding models, plural, to support a network of federated and distributed platforms! We could even couple it with ways we know that enable distributed and federated platforms to interoperate and keep at bay the problem that come from that. Of course, it's possible that this may be a sufficiently non-trivial problem where the best answer anyone's found to date is a centralized business. But hey, we won't know until we try! Also, email as a federated system and its history doesn't count, because that runs directly against the basic thesis that nobody has seriously tried.