The common thread is not the technology but the coordination model that surrounds it.

Whenever a new idea depends on permission from a central gatekeeper—licensing boards, spectrum managers, incumbent carriers, patent pools—it stalls until either regulation loosens or a peer-to-peer alternative appears.

Ultra-wideband radios show the pattern in miniature: first reserved for military work, then outright banned for civilians, they were only grudgingly opened for unlicensed use after the FCC’s 2002 rule-change; by then most early start-ups had died and the mass-market wave did not arrive until Apple’s U1 chip in 2019․ ([Medium][1], [TechInsights][2])

Telephone “transaction fees” followed the same script. Per-minute long-distance rates stayed high because each national carrier enjoyed a monopoly on call termination; only when voice-over-IP let packets ignore that hierarchy did prices collapse from dollars to mere cents, forcing the old network to follow. ([Calilio][3], [ResearchGate][4])

Metered mobile calls are the residual scar. Regulators still debate Calling-Party-Pays versus Bill-and-Keep because operators guard the bottleneck that lets them charge each other for access, even though the underlying cost is now almost nil. The fee survives as rent for central coordination. ([ResearchGate][4])

Your “watershed” is the moment when cryptographic protocols can supply the missing coordination service directly between peers: Lightning for payments, Nostr or ActivityPub for messaging, Fedimint or eCash mints for community treasuries, even decentralised spectrum-sharing for radios. Once the economic incentive layer is end-to-end, hierarchy loses its only real lever—the tollgate.

Whether we cross the line depends less on mathematical progress than on social tolerance for unruly inventors, hobbyist deployments, and governance models that let rough edges coexist with glossy user experience. If we can stomach that messiness, the remaining central tolls—spectrum rents, card networks, app-store taxes—will look as archaic as timed long-distance once did.

[1]: https://medium.com/%40orlandonhoward/the-silent-advent-of-uwb-technology-and-its-implications-for-privacy-6114fb2da0d3 "The silent advent of UWB technology and its implications for privacy | by Orlandon Howard | Medium"

[2]: https://www.techinsights.com/blog/apple-u1-delayering-chip-and-its-possibilities "The Apple U1 - Delayering the Chip and Its Possibilities | TechInsights"

[3]: https://www.calilio.com/blogs/evolution-of-calling-costs "Evolution of Calling Costs: How VoIP is Reducing Prices Over Time"

[4]: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/227426633_Mobile_termination_charges_Calling_Party_Pays_versus_Receiving_Party_Pays "Mobile termination charges: Calling Party Pays versus Receiving Party Pays | Request PDF"