I have been attempting to imagine a global mesh network that doesn't rely heavily in ISPs. I asked about it here #664201. In my head I imagine you have a device (wireless AP or just your phone or computer) discover other wireless devices nearby and use them to route traffic globally. I would also expect the devices to work if you just connect them via (ethernet) cable - they exchange information and learn that they support this hypothetical network and use the connection for global routing. I also imagine using bitcoin to pay all intermediate routing nodes either for traffic, per packet or per time (with policies set by node owner - he can set it to route for free, but the ability to get payment should exist). Also this network should bridge to the existing internet.

If such thing is possible and if implemented I would imagine that most traffic will still be routed through traditional ISPs, but the threat of easily bypassing them will make them behave friendly to the users.