There's been talk of building an alternative "hinternet" using ham radio technology, but it's not really viable for both economic and technical reasons. Short of that, being able to communicate via voice with anybody in the world using something other than the internet / large telcos as an intermediary is pretty good. Sure, you can't watch Netflix via your 10-meter radio, but basic communication and information sharing is totally doable, and it's going to be very hard for governments to shut such behavior down.

I first got my ham license precisely as a hedge against the apocalypse. If things really go bad, what use is a programmer? Anything requiring a $6 billion fab to get going will be out the window, so I've got to have some other useful talent. Ham radios can be built from scratch fairly easily, so I figured I'd learn to build and use radios so I'd be useful post-apocalypse.

What ended up happening is that I got into my first real hobby, and I've been enjoying making contacts with my little handheld radio. Soon I'm going to be putting together a rig for talking to people around the world! Sure, you can use the internet, but it's not about the messages: it's about the medium. Being able to build your very own personal communications device that can reach around the world feels awesome.

What bands did you use? I'm getting ready to buy my first HF rig, and I'm trying to figure out if I can go with an MFJ single-band right, but I don't know what's best for DXing.

I understand that Adobe's Acrobat Reader leaves something to be desired, but why do the rest of us have to put up with the crap that is iPaper??