And no, I'm not talking about pirating on the internet, I'm talking about getting your internet connection to the outside world without paying or having a subscription or license. Something like a mesh network with your neighbors with the exit node being one person's high-speed fiber line, or even an exit node through a free public wifi network that you've hidden a little repeater device within range of... something like that could be interesting. I've been thinking lately of a world where decentralized networks become more common, and where people can freely use the internet without paying an ISP. What are your thoughts?

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[–] brickfrog@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago) (2 children)

Nope, I prefer being able to run my own network router, open/close my own ports, block ads on the network, hopefully get as much bandwidth as I can, etc. so it's usually better for me to subscribe to my own internet.

... But since you bring it up, coincidentally I currently live on a street with shops/restaurants on the main floor under me. And all their wifi networks are visible from my apartment... so technically yeah, if I go through the trouble of collecting all their wifi passwords I could just hang out on their networks for free internet. Internet probably wouldn't be great and not very private without a VPN but for free web browsing it should work.

[–] ThorrJo@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 18 hours ago

Pirating wifi doesn't preclude any of this. See also the GL.iNet devices, such as the GL-MT3000.

[–] BarbecueCowboy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 18 hours ago

There are options out there to utilize multiple wifi networks at the same time, you probably wouldn't have what you need to get a fancy 'similar to enterprise level' solution going, but there are a bunch out there with the goal of using multiple networks purely for speed.