How can a group of volunteers build at least the tech for a replacement for the internet?

I was hoping that each individual user could run and maintain a piece of the infrastructure in a decentralized grassroots way.

How can users build a community owned and maintained replacement for the internet?

I hope that we can have our own servers and mesh/line/tower infrastructure and like wikipedia/internet-archive type organization and user donations based funding.

How could this be realized?

Can this be done with a custom made router that has a stronger wifi that can mesh with other’s of it’s kind? like a city wide mesh? or what are ways to do this?

Edit: this is not meant as a second dark web but more like geocities or the old internet with usermade websites

  • sighofannoyance@lemmy.worldOP
    12·
    6 months ago

    EDIT: I am not a technical. I meant more along the line of setting up a parallel infrastructure that provides anonymity and some sort modular extensibility. Ideally something that has like a box that looks like a regular router just the wifi is strong enough to cover an entire block and then these routers talk to each other in a sort of mesh.

    reasons for that are that for example the current internet isn’t designed for privacy let alone anonymitiy.

    AI spam is going to drown out any human content pretty soon on the regular internet. The regular internet has been hijacked/stole/devolved/self-destroyed (idk the exact details) however there was a noticeable downfall. Do you remember geo-cities?

    • mattlqx@lemmy.lqx.netEnglish
      6·
      6 months ago

      I’m old enough to have had one and a Tripod and Prodigy page for that matter. I still don’t think the analogy holds up at all. Geocities was a single centralized commercial entity even. People contributed the content and they hosted it, this is still to this very day what traditional web hosting is. What I guess you want is more authentic, personal content?

      If AI content is a chief concern, what would be the mechanism to stop the flow of it that couldn’t be applied (at a technical level) to the internet as it exists today? Or what human-driven policies could be made and policed better on a new network that nobody truly owns? (hint: this is already the internet)

      • sighofannoyance@lemmy.worldOP
        11·
        6 months ago

        stop the flow of it that couldn’t be applied (at a technical level) to the internet as it exists today?

        I would assume that if the users own and operate the infrastructure they would not be subjected to the ad-revenue model and other economic forces in the market that lead to the emergence of this sort of content spam.

        • mattlqx@lemmy.lqx.netEnglish
          2·
          6 months ago

          Ad revenue while it does convert free-service users to dollars isn’t the only means of commercialization (traditional business subscriber models for one) and as long as any financial incentives are there (not just ad-related), there will be spam of all kinds. Any general purpose medium will be come subject to this, it’s inevitable.

          To the large point, a very very small amount of users have the means, capability or desire to host their own networks and services. Raising the technical bar means lowering the audience size. Even then, you’ll still find bad actors and people you don’t agree with.

          • sighofannoyance@lemmy.worldOP
            1·
            6 months ago

            Are there options to develop hardware/firmware/software that you just plug in and it figures out everything else for you? Basically the hardware, the firmware and everything designed to very much spoon-feed the user, just plug it in and use. If that can be done it would remove one barrier for many people.