Do we walk away from D&D? Maybe. Maybe that's what it takes. Find an alternate D&D style game, there a ton out there. (Tales of the Valiant, Level Up Advanced 5e, Basic Fantasy, Pathfinder, Castles & Crusades, DCC, etc).
Also, there a ton of good people living their dream of designing rpgs and getting paid a decent salary.
We have a situation then. We want to support the creatives, the good people who just want to write, draw, design, and make good D&D products, and be able to make a decent living doing it. (Hopefully they understand that it's not a forever job.)
Also the third party people who supplement or depend on that product for their income, as they make products to support the 5e ecosystem.
We, however, don't want to support the big corporation. So how do we navigate this? I don't know. I wish I did. I don't need anymore 5e based D&D stuff, I have a bunch, more than I can possibly use. So I'm not a target demographic for anymore products.
I'd like to see a dent in the D&D monolith. That game has had a stranglehold on the industry forever, from a design standpoint, popularity, game play, expectations, etc.
Take WotC out of the mix, and then it's Paizo and it shrinks quickly from there. TTRPGs are a cottage industry type of product. Most game companies being extremely small, two dozen to a half dozen people, down to a single person with or without freelancers.
So, how do we support the creatives, even the ones at WotC, but not the corporations? Is it even possible?
Thank you for coming to my rant.