Each pool people think controls a large chunk of Bitcoin's network, consists of thousands of smaller miners pointing their hashrate to them. It's not as centralized as it may seem by looking at the pie charts of the hashrate distribution.

Positive development is that there have been various proposals to further decentralize the network further by for example allowing the individual miners to choose which transactions they mine instead of the pool operator.

Even you as smaller miner with just a few thousand dollar worth of equipment will be able to contribute. Isn't that something to look forward to? We're here for the same reason, which is to see Bitcoin succeed.