As the internet becomes more and more central to the dissemination of information, I think it is more and more critical that there be some mutually agreed upon 'neutral' channel for communication between people. Because the alternative is that all access to very large and extremely important populations is cut off from your message completely. For instance, non English speakers in China, Indonesia, Iran, and Vietnam. The worst part about it is that in the days of broadcast, you would just say OK, and proceed to have US Government funded radio broadcast into whatever country. Fast forward to today, and how many of those kids are walking around with a radio? Very few probably.