Ask HN: How do you conceptualize the internet?

I'm currently sitting in a class discussion at my university discussing the relationship between the internet and privacy/IP law.

Everyone here are law students and the most common view of the internet as a physical place - the lecturer recently wrote an article asking whether the internet should be seen as a meadow or a series of rooms.

My answer is neither. I don't think that using physical metaphors are going to accurately represent what the internet is and how it works. I think it's actually a bit dangerous once we start making laws off this assumption too.

So my question is, how do you all see the internet? What's the fairest way to conceptualise data, how it's made and who can use it?

I can't help but think that asking here is going to be better than asking the law faculty :-/

TL;DR: How should we think of the internet? Should it be treated as a physical 'place' or is this wrong? How do we explain it to people without a tech background (lawyers, young children etc.)?