Start at the very bottom of the stack.

1). The physical network exists and it’s not yours. Not your servers, not your routers.

2). IP addresses are assigned by IANA. This is a permission request.

To create a decentralised network, the network ID’s / addresses would need to be self generated not assigned from a permission granting institution. You should self declare an identity and the network should propagate it with your traffic. First time connections would be slow, second time connections would be fast.

The Internet Protocol we all use at the base is highly centralised. You can create abstract networks within the internet like VPN’s do, or onion, but all the exit points are centrally assigned IP’s.

Why bother when we have encryption?

As great and fundamental as TCP/IP is, it is not permissionless and although this permission is always granted and is always frictionless, the result of IP design is a central register that geotags and ownertags every IP address. 

Whilst the content of your message can be hidden, the TCP table cannot. The TCP table contains all the information required to go fish for the message.

Is there no hope?

Well if someone were to make the effort to devise an alternative routing system with self generated addresses, a permissionless network, then you could have a free network. The barrier is that all the physical network all the network cards and routers run IP. It’s a huge barrier.

But we are gradually approaching a world where you can do the impossible and circumvent the physical network that exists today. 

Within a decade or two it will be fairly easy to replace the physical internet with a network of cubesats that hosts a decentralised network architecture.

It won’t be as fast as the internet, it would be slow and expensive, but it would be secure and untraceable.

Will it happen? No. 
But it’s not as impossible as it once was. 

 I like the sounds of that. But then I recall a conversation with a colleague who doesn't see the need for privacy when you have nothing to hide.... You're right, it might never happen.