Democratic process does not exist when everyone is free to start a project. Users also often do not know what they want either until it's shown to them.

Apparently do not have the same definition of "democracy". The definition that I use is more or less the Swiss system. At the top, a group of people that takes decisions that they think it is the best - and the people that have the power to override the decision if they organize a vote or propose a new law.

What you seem to be suggesting is to replace open source model with grant academia model if I'm being generous Nope... Read what open-source-economy.com or tea.xyz - that is the future of OSS IMO.