I am not so sure I totally agree with an article in USA Today it talks about how the web is becoming more restrictive in what you are able to access. The reference is made in regards to filtering software and public access points like libraries and from your work place.
My employer has every right to block content and access to applications. Should I really be chatting on IRC or surfing porn sites at work. Probably not a good idea if you value your job and want promotions versus demotions. Thus far while surfing the web from home I have yet to have my ISP block my access to materials. If they ever did they would have one less customer and I would be sure to be on every local TV and Radio station in the area. I hope libraries use common sense in there filtering schemes. I do not want my kids picking yo Dr. Seuss books and be able to observe some guy looking at a porn site. Libraries should have sensible user rules but I am sure many get over zealous.
Sure lot’s of countries block whole subnet blocks and domains. But if they don’t like it they can get enough people together and overthrow there government. I laugh when I read about China and there attempt to block sites. It is only a matter of time before those billion plus citizens get pissed off and take care of those leaders the old fashioned way.
A few years ago I noticed a lot of traffic on my BBS site that was coming from China. What was unique about it was they had found a loop hole in our service that allowed them to use our proprietary connection manager and get re-directs to restricted sites. The word spread fast and being my license for the software only allowed X number of connections soon my regular users were unable to access the system. I shut down the re-directs and oh boy I got about 5000 e-mails from pissed of Chinese people. I later did some statistics and we had nearly a 100,000 users that were getting to places on the web that there country had blocked via our short lived unintentional re-direct service.
So I think people will do what they have always done look for ways to out maneuver the filters and application restrictions.