How can a group of volunteers build at least the tech for a replacement for the internet?

I was hoping that each individual user could run and maintain a piece of the infrastructure in a decentralized grassroots way.

How can users build a community owned and maintained replacement for the internet?

I hope that we can have our own servers and mesh/line/tower infrastructure and like wikipedia/internet-archive type organization and user donations based funding.

How could this be realized?

Can this be done with a custom made router that has a stronger wifi that can mesh with other’s of it’s kind? like a city wide mesh? or what are ways to do this?

Edit: this is not meant as a second dark web but more like geocities or the old internet with usermade websites

    • Smokeydope@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Look Into specs for helium miners for hardware and you’ll have a rough idea. The real question is software stack. How such a device would be interacted with from a user interface level, how would its version of webpages would work? I imagine its webpages would have to be text based with the option to download images or audio files as seperate files like the gemini protocol displayed as gemtext. Would consumers be willing to go back to early days web 1.0 style content like blogs and internet journals? You couldn’t use such a network connection for work or banking so thats another limitation.

      Look into ham radio internet and mesh networks in general its not fiction its just never seen enough mass adoption in a easy to set up onsumer bought package thats successfully advertised and well distributed.