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Coppice, I'll put it this way. We need the manufacturers in F1 for it to continue to have the capital and perceived prominence to be on TV in the first place. And if we can't continue to even watch it, well...
Sportscar racing has fallen into the doldrums more than once when it became largely the playground of privateers. Media coverage fell off, and along with it, the general knowledge that it even existed among less invested parts of the public. NASCAR, like F1, has only maintained its presence through manufacturer involvement. The Indy 500 itself was about the only household name in that discipline before the teams took it upon themselves to run the sport more as a commercial venture than a "club", as USAC had done up to that point. And of course, having recognized manufacturer names in the series, and promoting that, was essential to CART's rise. And we saw post-split how having Andretti, Unser, Patrick, and Penske wasn't enough to save open wheel from a crash compared to its former position.
And a lot of stuff is baked in, and isn't going to change if, first, there isn't a major change in the nature of not just FOM, but the FIA itself, which approves the technical and sporting regs. Furthermore though, it's going to require wider cultural changes, including more pushback against large corporations generally, as well as a change in perception, to where people feel they have a good enough lot such that they care more about elements of the actual sport that go further below the surface.
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