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I'd like to take this moment to step in with a bit of optimism and share something I dug up on Slashdot:

https://motherboard.vice.com/enus/article/7x4y8a/net-neutrality-fcc-community-networks

As well as this, in particular. I think this may be some hope.
<a href="https://motherboard.vice.com/enus/article/paax9n/rural-america-is-building-its-own-internet-because-no-one-else-will">https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/paax9n/rural-america-is-building-its-own-internet-because-no-one-else-will

The Internet was heavily federated when it was first built, and still is. As a result, there are many ways we could still operate outside of the infrastructure that the Telecom Mafia controls. Find out if your town has a community broadband network, and start volunteering if you can. Try to see if you can get your town to adopt a fiber-to-home network. I know that there are some Ham Radio enthusiasts here -- now is the time to start putting that equipment to use.

One thing you can do right now, even if you have no money or time, is to start operating sneakernets[1] or pirateboxes[2] to try to build up the network effect, or start moving onto peer-to-peer networks. You could even set up a Retroshare network and share the information you want to share with your friends yourself rather than relying on a content delivery provider which could be censored or blocked by your ISP.

Don't forget about peer-to-peer networks like I2P. Peer to peer networks can be difficult to censor or block without completely redoing the entire federated model that the Internet relies on. Volunteer networks such as Tor hidden services can be difficult to censor or block (there are ways to block Tor exit nodes and guard nodes, but there are ways to circumvent these blocks through the use of Onionsites and Tor Bridges). If the ISPs insist on blocking and censoring, we can use tunnelling to circumvent it. Many of these nodes exist outside the United States and won't need to answer to US Policy. If the guard nodes start getting blocked, use a Bridge.

Also, while this can be a bit of a long shot, ask your favourite content provider about domain fronting[3] and see what could be done about that. This is one way to make it expensive or costly for the ISPs to start throttling or shutting off access to particular sites, since there are ways (Domain Fronting is one of them) to use encryption to disguise traffic they want to block as something they don't.

There are ways we can fight back, we just need to use them.


[1] A sneakernet is simply a fancy way of saving data to a CD or a USB drive, and carrying it to where it needs to go by walking (hence, shoes, or sneakers) to the destination.
[2] Piratebox: A piratebox is simply a regular off the shelf wifi router attached to some means of storage that can be used to create ad-hoc portable networks. Fancy cases are not required, but they look good! https://piratebox.cc/
[3] Domain Fronting: In layman's terms, this is a way to circumvent blocks by utilizing some of the features of HTTPS to disguise traffic your ISP, or even government may wish to censor by making it appear as if it were coming from an entirely different website. http://resources.infosecinstitute.com/domain-fronting/
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