Well I'm not really sure that I can disagree with what you say Skull - and indeed don't think my earlier comments necessarily disagree with your own - but perhaps it's more a difference of emphasis than a disagreement. I agree that the internet helps oil the wheels of political debate and discourse, but I think the whole thing is overdone.
Take the taxi trade and the likes of TDO. TDO has certainly helped facilitate debate and the disemmination of knowledge. It's arguably helped some break the system, while on the other hand it's possibly helped others join the system. But like politics it depends on what you consider the system to be and whether it's desirable or not.
Meanwhile, however, the real taxi world carries on regardless. For example, would the Law Commission process be much different if the internet hadn't existed? I doubt it - the same old vested interests, who also use the internet, but just as an extension of their traditional ways of operating.
By the same token, despite TDO, numerous other taxi blogs and websites, the rest of the trade carries on regardless. I suspect 99% plus of the trade simply don't use the internet for information and debate, hence it all reverts to the likes of the trade magazines, the NTA, the LTDA etc, so in reality not much has changed from 20 years ago.
Ditto the wider world of politics, the internet and the mainstream media. TDO and the taxi trade is just a microcosm of politics generally and the dead tree press, television etc.
And even if it's accepted that the 'new media' can facilitate change, I suspect such change will be limited in scope.
My politics used to be a bit like your own Skull, but over the years I've come to the conclusion that society is unlikely to change that much, and we won't be manning the barricades any time soon.
Problem is, while people mump and moan, at the end of the day they're generally happy with the status quo and the wider capitalist system , since most people have a nice house, a car or two in the garage and a couple of holidays a year.
That's why in western democracies the most radical you're likely to see come to power is an Obama, Blair or Salmond, who may seem relatively radical, but at the end of the day they're all wind and pish and essentially they're just tinkering around the edges of the status quo. And even if they do have good intentions, the reality of office means that their ability to implement radical change is limited - realpolitik.
Thus things will change in the next few years, but not radically, and while the radicals will huff and puff essentially they're doing little more than pishing into the wind.
I mean, societies have always been grossly unequal and hierarchical. Capitalism as we know it has developed in the last couple of hundred years. Communism has tried to usurp it, but in turn that's been overthrown because all communism offered was a different hiearchy and inequality, but without the economic dynamism of capitalism that's provdided the BMWs, foreign holidays and iPads (except of course for those at the top, but it's didn't permeate further down as it has in the West).
Similarly, the Arab dictatorships and theocracies are being replaced by what exactly in this more recent great revolution?
Yes, all they want is to replicate the satellite TV, David Bechams and Starbucks culture of Western capitalism.
Of course, things will change in time, but more in tune with the broad sweep of history covering hundreds of years rather than before you and me are six feet under.
I suspect people's time would be better spent trying to effect limited change rather than making a nuisance of themselves by camping out in Wall Street or outside St Paul's Cathedral (or wherever) hoping to implement a new world order.
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