another form of connectivity that doesn’t rely on national infrastructure. I have no idea what that is

l can tell you.
It's the internet in its original form. A distributed network of independent nodes freely peering to each other over a decentralized infrastructure.

First to go was the decentralization.
Main knots like DE-CIX are now the central connection points and single point of failure (and intrusion).

Next went the independent distribution with hyperscalers taking over.

Currently the free peering is about to disappear.
E.g. my provider, a major one here in Germany, just announced to completely remove from free public peering and let a private company handle it for him instead.
This company then charges other peers based on bandwidth.

The problem of looming governmental restrictions is just the tip of the iceberg.
The internet is already rotten from the infrastructural core and there is no easy way around that...