This is exactly the reason Bitcoin was structured this way to start. It's only now that it has become so valuable that the prize is so high to make the lottery scheme risk-worthy back again. It initially wasn't so much, despite being the core scheme, because bitcoin was worthless compared to the energy consumption implied.

This once again showcases the brilliance of Bitcoin design, for the more valuable it gets, the more incentives are for it to be decentralized. What a jewel of Game Theory engineering Bitcoin is.