If so, then over time power will shift to countries that heavily dictate allowable online discourse (China)
I think a wide-open global Internet in anything like its current form will turn out to be one of those things that seems amazing and mostly-great when you look at it from an individual perspective but has very bad consequences at a population scale, far outweighing any benefit. Again, especially for democracies—we thought it would liberalize oppressive states, but I think we got that tragically wrong, and it may in fact be the instrument that unleashes the "chaos" and painful disorder that critics of democracy and liberalism have always predicted.
As for the power shift: more than likely, yes. Governments that have a tight grip on the information that reaches its population, and have already been manipulating it for their own benefit, have a higher chance of surviving than those that don't.
We're already seeing signs of this, and it will only get crazier in the following decades. We're living in dark times.
It's the same with 99.9% of players that play MMORPG's or buy a game, or anything for that matter. The participation _is_ the performance in play, and it only exists because people participate. Yet this can be unpacked into whether those participating even know they are participating and yadda yadda.
It's an interesting dive.