> I think it'll eventually fragment into multiple segregated continental networks, if not national ones That's exactly the world in which the Internet grew. Th

> I think it'll eventually fragment into multiple segregated continental networks, if not national ones That's exactly the world in which the Internet grew. There were multiple segregated national and sub-national networks, and the Internet was built as a means to interconnect them. After some time, the Internet protocols ended up being used even within these networks, but that was not originally the case. And even today, there are still things like the AS (Autonomous System) concept which permeates the core of the top-level Internet routing protocols, which still reflect the Internet being a "network of networks" instead of a single unified network. That's why I'm not too worried about the Internet fragmenting; we've seen this before. What happens next is gateways between the networks, and there are already shades of these in the VPN providers which allow one to connect as if one were located in a different network, often from a different country.