Centralized Exchanges are the banks of the crypto world, if you let them become that. In my mind, if you build a great coin with great features (think of something like XMR), then you're going to get the exchanges to accept you without having to dump tons of money on exchange fees. This is the thought process of 'if you build it, they'll come'

So this means instead of building from the top down (the top being exchanges) you have to built from the bottom up. This is going to take more time, more people, more resources in developing, and so on and so forth but you're going to be rewarded in saving on the exchange fees. A coin like XMR, builds itself in local communites first -- showing that it is a coin that is like cash again, anonymous. That's obviously going to be loved by regular people who value their privacy, people who are protecting their government, people doing shady things (drugs online, etc), online drug marketplaces, etc.

Now that you've built yourself into the community, the exchanges are going to slowly come. From the shitty / scammy ones, to the ones that are legitimate and big and have the volume required. At first you're probably going to have to run your own exchange -- a simple btc to XMR (or whatever your coin is here) conversion that people do manually (requires a good deal of trust)

They are the banks, but you can do a lot to dethrone them.