suggesting that people give up their ability to learn a skill in order to instead rent it out from an unauditable, unknowable, unquestionable third party that has disempowered people who already have that skill

is not fucking democracy

that is the opposite of democracy

that is creating a central, unquestionable authority that is not beholden to you.

also?  "democratizing skills"?  You do not have a *right* to the skills of other people.  So even if this authoritarian style enclosure wasn't already making a mockery of the term, the fact that it's literally built on the stolen labor of the individuals who it is disempowering (by removing their ability to gain pay for their work) IS NOT DEMOCRACY.