alt Hacker NewsOne problem I see with this is discoverability. Most people viewing these "independent" sources are seeing them on some platform like TikTok/YouTube/FB/Twitter where algorithms have a lot to say who sees what when.
Another problem with these "independents" is they are fed their material via farms that have been proven to be run by Russian operatives which makes the quotes around independents necessary.
That is a problem of not having unlimited time. The internet (at least as it broadly exists now) solved the problem of a few people being able to prevent access to information, and in such a manner that distribution is almost instant.
Lack of unlimited time means people will need some way to choose which information to learn and which to not learn, which may well be to choose whatever is curated by Meta/Alphabet/etc, but that is a choice made by the user, not by leaders.