The whole discussion reminds me of talks at the dinner table with my father. He was born in 1939 studied what is "IT" nowadays in Vienna, Austria, and Chicago, Illinois. He was working as the head of IT at the University in Innsbruck when the first e-mail ever was sent at the CERN.
The idea of a free and decentralised Internet to connect Universities and scientists on the whole planet was the ideal that started his workoholism.
First networks were up, when suddenly the marked was flooded with products from the US based on a network fitting the needs of the US military.
My father complained bitterly about the hesitation of the european experts. Cooperation was still slowed down by national "pride". "Gifts" to decision takers and the (false) impression that the US tech was ripe, safe and ready to use stalled the european ideas of an internet of free access to the knowledge of human kind, an internet of enlightenment, so to say.
The european idea was that of an indestructable public infrastructure, like a public watergrid, but to fulfil the rights on education and access to knowledge rather than water.
Financed by public funding "from everyone for everyone". With open source building blocks. Like a rail network that can be enlarged and maintained from anyone anywhere.
It would have been something new, something revolutionary.
He stated that the US solution would inherit the according values: militaristic, competitive, commercialised and capitalistic.
When the first shops opened online and scientific publications started to be barred behind paywalls he stated: "That is the end of what the internet could have been."
Was he right? Somehow. Would the european solution have taken a different route? Maybe not.
What remained from that time? The ideas and nostalgia visible in this thread. And an active open source community including the Linux ecosystem.
It is not dead. It diversified. It mirrors our societies.
If my father would have survived the pandemic I am sure he would push for the creation of a new internet from scratch. With hardware that hardwires data safety, prohibits invasion of private spaces and functions as a public infrastructure. Would there be reckless drivers? Sure. But they wouldn't dictate the rules of the road including fares and up- and download rates.
Free as in liberty, not free as in freedom.
Dear ingenieurs: It's your turn.
P.S.: This comment reflects the opinion of my father as I remember it. It is not based on journalistic research.