why do we need a isp?

> can you be your own isp?

Yes, on your own local (LAN) network.

still though is it illegal to connect directly to the internet
(not that i will as yes i probably would spend 18 years or more in a prison anyway)

Is starting a de jure ISP serving noone but yourself possible?

See https://db.ffdn.org for a list of associative ISP. Most of them are in France but that certainly is not accurate. It is just that FFDN, the federation of French associative ISPs, maintains that database and is not aware of associative ISPs all over the world.

The associative ISPs really work for its associates. They have no customers, only associates. Decisions are taken by the associates. Associative ISPs defend and promote Net neutrality. Technically, an associative ISP rents part of the equipments of another major ISP (but does whatever it wants on top of the physical infrastructure).

>what do isp's actually do?

There are lots of ways to answer this. It's not clear to me what kind of information you are looking for. Did you search what you are looking for with a search engine?.

ISPs operate (not necessarily own) the physical infrastructure that covers a part of the Internet. This may or may not include service to final customers like you and me, or just other ISPs. In other words, they interconnect their customers between themselves and also to the rest of the Internet through other ISPs. However, I think that you already know this.

>still though is it illegal to connect directly to the internet

It is not possible to connect “directly” to the Internet because that does not makes sense.

Bear in mind that Internet is not a distribution network, like those of electricity, water or fuels, in which there are producers and consumers of a resource, and what the network does is to move the resource from the producers to the consumers. The job of communications networks (Internet, the telephone network, etcetera) is to interconnect people. In a sense, everyone is a producer and a consumer. This has a very important consequence. You could run your own hydroelectric power plant, put photovoltaic panels in your roof, pump your water, etcetera, without having to connect your single node network with anyone else. You can't do the same with the Internet. Having Internet access means by definition that your computer is part of Internet, and it is connected to all other computers in the Internet. It follows that being part of Internet is a social activity and there is no way to connect “directly” to it, because there is no “source of Internet” or similar to speak of.

Every ISP connects to other ISPs. If you want to learn about the technical details, begin by investigating the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP). Roughly speaking, every ISP presents itself as an Autonomous System (AS) for the purposes of BGP connectivity. Autonomous Systems are public, identified by a number and allocated by the same organizations that oversee the allocation of IP addresses. You can investigate a given Autonomous System using the “whois” command (Example: "whois AS1239") or in Hurricane Electric website. Note that some ISPs have several Autonomous Systems, and some organizations have their own autonomous systems but are not ISPs.

An organization that has an Autonomous System controls to which other organizations it will connect to exchange traffic, including providing IP transit (the defining characteristic of an ISP). That is the autonomy referred to in “Autonomous System”. These organizations will also have IP addresses allocated to them from a Regional Internet Registry (RIR) so that they control their IPs. Most of us use an IP address controlled by our ISPs and shared between several users through Network Address Translation (NAT), but those IP addresses aren't under our control. An organization that has its own AS needs not renumber its network when changing ISPs, and it may be multi‐homed (serviced by more than one ISP), etcetera. Due to this autonomy, operators of big networks usually have an AS assigned to them, this includes CloudFlare, Yandex, and others.

>can you be your own isp?

Technically, an ISP is an organization, so you can't literally be an ISP, but with time, effort and money, you could start or purchase an ISP of your own. It's not something you can do overnight. It requires dedication just like any other business. I highly doubt that starting an ISP of your own is feasible just to escape censorship and spying. For those 2 problems, you can already use Tor.

The most nefarious ISPs are those that provide the last hop. As far as I know, traffic shaping, port blocking, insertion of spurious TCP connection resets, NAT, and so on are performed by them. If you own the last hop ISP, you can make sure that it doesn't do that (unless required by law), but you would still be subject to the ISPs from which you purchase transit.

As for “taking your money”, there are costs involved, and nobody is going to give you free money, provide IP transit, lay the cables to your house, etc. for no cost. Money isn't the problem. Money is just a way to store and transfer purchasing power. In the exceptional case that a service doesn't costs you money, it will cost you something else.

For learning more, you can read The TCP/IP Guide which is available online, or any printed book with a title like “computer networks”. The linked book is not free documentation, but I don't know of any free as in freedom book on computer networks, and this is the only online book about computer networks in general that I know of. The information available through blog entries, forum threads, articles, and so on, (which is usually proprietary for lacking a license) isn't really suitable for the systematic learning of any topic, but it can still be useful.

why do we need a isp? Do you want the lamest term or you want the intelligent one?

Ill start with the lamest, ISP is an INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDER. Either privately own or community own. Basically they are the ones in a very distant remote town providing the Internet gateway to the WWW or a major hub for a city.

Have you ever work in an ISP in your life? Probably you have not or neither will. It is not a regular job, it takes a different kind of woman and man to do that kind job., it is real hard work, a lot of sweat, it pays real good at the end, it will challenge you everyday. You will be dirty at the end of your shift, It requires you to wear and understand the many hats of the job, example: understand pair accountability, bookkeeping and maintaining updates of records, installation, termination, grounding, splicing either copper network or fiber. Then you got outside plant and inside plant personnel working together with one objective, the client, the service and then the pay check.

Then you got the automation part of it.

Again, You might not agree you don't need an ISP?

But, Without them the whole nation would never inter connected a long time ago.

Those ISP were here before your great-grand father was born during the Telegraph era, At that time it was called a central switching center.

This is a great question and one I had never thought of. Does anyone know of a associative ISP in the UK?

Hello.
It might be a very very very stupid idea but.... Forget about the ethernet cables and all of that. Think you have a wifi hotspot, which you use to share information inside your own house, and only your laptop has access. One day, you give access to your neighboor, who uses his wifi capable laptop to connect to your wifi hotspot, download stuff you share, and also has a hotspot of his own that "extends" that small network to his own neighboor. And so on and so on. Everyone who had a wifi device that could receive and send information would be able to join that small network and share files (sites, mails, videos, live streams, etc). Would that be so much different from the internet? You wouldn't need an ISP, you wouldn't need to pay, and you could even use some Tor technology if you wanted added security/privacy.

If three neighboors did this, and the second one would allow the others to store files in his disk they could even start having their own hosting service (free in this case, but it could be a paid service). Is it such a bad and stupid idea?? One could even have several small groups as this connecting to each other through the already existent internet if desired (but not mandatory).

How about something like this?
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/Building_a_Rural_Wireless_Mesh_Network_-_A_DIY_Guide_v0.8.pdf