> A protection racket implies collusion between attacker and defender, where the defender comes to you offering “protection”, but then comes again as an attacker to those who refuse
For the average Internet citizen, the practical difference doesn't matter: unless you're hiding behind one of the powerhouses, everyone can shoot you off the Internet by renting a botnet for the equivalent of a dozen pizzas in Bitcoin, without having to fear any consequence. In real life, someone disrupting my business for hours would be carted off by police and I could sue their butt off for damages.
> This is the thing: cutting off diplomatic routes is almost never the right approach, even during a hot war.
There are diplomatic routes beyond the Internet, and additionally, at the moment for these four countries access to the Internet is like we'd let their landing ships take harbor at a port and let them unload their tanks in peace. We're not doing that in real life, we should not be doing that in cyberspace as well!
> The Internet is like the Olympics: it provides a way for the common people of different countries to see each-other’s good works and learn to respect one-another; even as the leaders of those countries, and asshole minorities within those countries, are making the news and fanning hawkish sentiment. Throwing out the counterbalance in such a scenario is something you’d expect an Emperor Palpatine figure to do, to engineer a war.
Given the Great Firewall of China, the almost-complete censorship in North Korea for everyone not a high-ranking party cadre and the Internet restrictions in Russia and Iran, it's hard to claim that the Internet in these countries actually fulfils that role.