It wasn't altruistic per se, but that doesn't make it nefarious, either. At it's core, it was just a network connectivity design that resists node failure. It was us that used that foundation to create a virtual space that everyone could participate in. We now have outsized bad actors like Google and Microsoft and Amazon and alphabet agencies that are trying to influence that virtual space, but its culture was built by us.

Altruism doesn't need to be a part of it. And while the military started the Internet, universities made it what it is today, and for a long time it was merely a medium for sharing information.

The highway system was also created by the military, yet it has connected people far more than it has facilitated war. We definitely went too far on adapting to highways, but for many years it was just a better way to get from A to B.

The problem, I think, is that the average person just wants something better than what they have now (incremental change), and they don't want to pay for it. People preferred roads to trains because they were faster and they didn't pay for it directly, and now we have fewer trains. Likewise, people wanted content on websites for free, so content producers introduced ads to their products.

If you want something, you need to vote with your wallet and your ballot. Just doing one isn't enough.

how do you make a separate internet?