Having to buy static IPs rather than just getting one with your internet subscription.

And the "A" in ADSL.

technically it wouldn't take much (or anything really) for people to transition to a v6 overlay network and get this back again.

but i'm afraid that the value of an intermediary-free internet isn't really perceptible enough to drive adoption, even if you made it completely painless.

I meet an awful lot of people, even in tech, that are surprised and shocked that you can use a computer thats not sitting right in front of you. or that two computers sitting next to each other can exchange data without using some third party service.

computing-as-television really won - just like how for the longest time quite a number of people thought that microsoft windows was the canonical definition of what a computer was.

Technically it is doable, what it lacking is the demand. It is this lack of demand which I deem to be the biggest problem, the fact that the average net user does not realise - or does not care - that they essentially have being herded into a panopticon where the guards are selling tickets for the show to the highest bidder. Attempts to explain this nearly always are met with indifference or hostility. The indifference is the biggest problem here given that I suspect the hostility comes from people who are in denial and as such at least are partly aware of their role in the herd.