The moment the “net neutrality” debate began was the moment the net neutrality debate was lost,” says author Douglas Russkoff on Shareable.net. “For once the fate of a network — its fairness, its rule set, its capacity for social or economic reformation — is in the hands of policymakers and the corporations funding them, that network loses its power to effect change.

“I propose we abandon the Internet, or at least accept the fact that it has been surrendered to corporate control like pretty much everything else in Western society…. So let’s get on it. Shall we use telephony, ham radio, or some other part of the spectrum? Do we organize overlapping meshes of WiMax?”