awesome-list-rpc-nodes-providers VS bee

https://github.com/arddluma/awesome-list-rpc-nodes-providers has a good list of providers and sorts them by chain, would def recommend taking a look at that.

For Metamask alternatives, Rabby https://rabby.io/ (MIT-licensed) (it routes all queries through its own RPCs atm) and Frame https://frame.sh/ (GPLv3) are the best desktop alternatives I've tried. The latter is my preferred client and IMO is a strict upgrade from Metamask. It's also getting a $7/$1 match on Gitcoin Grants GR12 right now if anyone wants to contribute in the next week: https://gitcoin.co/grants/1143/frame

There are many, many WalletConnect https://walletconnect.com/ compatible wallets that can be used with most dapps as well. There are close to 100 of these: https://walletconnect.com/registry/wallets

As for RPCs, here's a list for you: https://github.com/arddluma/awesome-list-rpc-nodes-providers

If you want to run you're own RPC node, it's not so hard as there are docker and docker-compose images that will let you get geth (or nethermind, or erigon) that will let you spin up an RPC pretty trivially.

The more important thing for decentralization IMO, is that you can reasonably switch, even if most people don't. Think about how this plays out in the browser or email markets and compare it to how much of a difference that is to completely locked in services like Facebook.

Deployed Bee to the mainnet (v1.14.1).

Are you mixing up projects? https://www.ethswarm.org/

You can download the most recent bee packages here: https://github.com/ethersphere/bee/releases/latest

February was a big month for the Swarm network. The price of postage stamps has been recalibrated with the release of Bee 1.20, which marks a major milestone for Swarm’s self-sustaining network. The Research Track has also completed the documentation for Phase 4, which details the work of this phase of the Storage incentives roadmap.

There is a project called Swarm that does exactly this.

https://www.ethswarm.org

(Disclosure: I am working on the project)

https://www.ethswarm.org/ is like storj (stores the file as chunks of data) but more secure and censorship resistant.

In short, there will be five phases to the upgrade (you can expect a more detailed blog on the topic soon). Phase 1 started on 13 September with the breaking release of Bee 1.8.0. This phase will be followed by four other phases that will upgrade the storage incentives mechanism, recalibrate the network, change the storage price, introduce a decentralised price oracle and improve the overall state of the network.

There were two versions of the Bee client released in the last month. It is important to mention that node operators are requested to update to the latest version (1.7.0) as soon as possible because there was a change in the protocol.