"Peer-to peer networks are composed of personal computers tied together with consumer Internet connections, each node a quantum zone of uncertainty, prone to going offline whenever its owner closes his laptop and chucks it into a shoulder-bad...Peer-to-peer networks aren't owned by any central authority, nor can they be controlled, killed, or broken by a central authority. Companies and concerns may program and release software for peer-to-peer networking, but the networks that emerge are owned by everyone and no one.
They're faery infrastructure, networks whose maps form weird n-dimensional topologies of surpassing beauty and chaos; mad technological hairballs run by ad-hocracies whose members each act in their own best interests.
In a nutshell, peer-to-peer technology is goddamn wicked. It's esoteric. It's unstoppable. It's way, way cool."
— Cory Doctorow, "The Gnomes of San Jose"