Stephen Talbott's The Future Does Not Compute is a non-technical book that starts by questioning these assumptions. It's worth reading if you thought you ought to know about the Internet. It is worth reading if you thought that a commercial, originally military network, is going to have any automatic benefit for humanity. The Future Does Not Compute is a start of returning sense to those knocked senseless by technical arrogance. Or rather, some of it is worth reading, and the rest is rather peculiar.
People talk of the global village.
Not much of Sebreneca, anyway. Folk there used to talk to each other before the war started. The usual imperative is to get on the Internet because it is good. As one Internet voice said, I think the networks of the future will be the most incredibly egalitarian technology ever invented. The possibilities are rather dazzling.