“Better” is relative, depends on your frame of reference. Anything crypto will be better in some ways, and worse in others.

Like self custody: the idea of owning a valuable and transferable asset by only holding a private key was not possible prior to Bitcoin. The closest comparison might be a domain name: people feel like they own those, but they are just renting them from a registrar who leases you the account and ability to edit your domain records.

This applies all over Ethereum, DeFi, ENS, NFTs. Look at Aave, that allows lending and borrowing without a custodial service provider.