After the world economy crashes there's bound to be a lot of cvil unrest. Obviously the internet can be used to organize civil unrest, which will make authorities want to control it, perhaps even eliminate it.
But after the crash, the most pressing problem will be organizing the basic necessities of life, like water, food, shelter, clothing, energy for power, and a means of exchanging all these things.
After the global economy crashes, the system of organization that once provided us with the necessities of life—the global aggregate of national economies—will be at a standstill. But the internet will be available, at least in the beginning, to replace it. Even so, it will take a while before it becomes an efficient replacement.
If citizens become more interested in organizing unrest than they are in organizing the basic necessities of life, then authorities will see the internet as a threat. So if citizens want to keep the internet after the crash, they better immediately start using it for organizing the basic necessities of life rather than organizing unrest and they better start creating what some call the Autonomous Internet. Otherwise the one system that might save them will be under attack from the government. And I doubt humankind can survive being thrown back into the stone age like that during an economic collapse that will be unprecedented in every respect and along every dimension.
