That is something I agree on at the earlier stages of platform development. Looks like the three paths are:

1. Decentralized L1s

That's the long term distributed tribal setup that is hoping to become one nation in the future, and that typically works by having one tribe be much stronger than all the others.

Short term grants typically do not incentivize long term efforts unfortunately and it's incredibly hard to bootstrap without some cult-like properties of the mission and community.

2. Successful apps building their own L1 à-la Hyperliquid to own and optimize the infrastructure layer

That is the one successful city that decides to build the empire infrastructure in a way that powers it. What is important here is not individual success of the various projects around the L1 ecosystem but the survival and success of the main application.

Hyperliquid, Ethena, and others are headed there.

3. L1s trying to build a successful app

Typically a core protocol team that’s already invested in infrastructure and decentralization attempting to verticalize upwards into a flagship app.

It’s fundamentally challenging because L1 teams are culturally geared towards protocol-level engineering and decentralization rather than product-market fit and user acquisition. It's doable but rare imo, and requires a centralized foundation that already perceives chain users as customers.

Sui has done a lot of work early on to verticalize a great UX, and simplify access to its ecosystem.

Solana also has the right culture to build more successful applications on top of its L1 including Solana Mobile.