@monsterislandcolonizer The ripple effects of the collapse in social trust mean a collapse of centralized authority and a reversion to more decentralization. People trusted a few megacorps to control the internet and its infrastructure because they all accepted gentleman's agreements to not abuse their power. Now that everyone's abusing their power and everyone knows everyone's abusing their power, I expect local authorities and power brokers to consolidate their own infrastructure so they can't be remotely cut off. Something similar happened in the Roman Empire, when Emperors were constantly being assassinated and nobody could count on the centralized government, so local authorities seized more power to pick up the slack.