The way I am seeing it is: if people support a system and enjoy it being around, they should have the choice to fund it and continue funding it by their own will, not by a law that forces them to give up a certain percentage of their earnings. Wishful thinking maybe, but that is what dreamers do, and doers start with.

I do think this is wishful thinking as a lot of the people wouldn't want to part with any of their possessions if they have a choice not to.

From the majority of public perspectives on this issue in the US, yes. Anything that you earn (money) and purchase (with money) is legally yours. In fact, lawsuits would not happen without this fact, as every lawsuit boils down to money/assets. Someone owing something of theirs to someone else, for x amount of reasons. This implies rights of ownership.

I'm not saying you don't have a right of ownership, I'm asking if you think this right is sovereign. I maintain that it's not and it's derived from the same legal system that also forces you to pay your taxes. From a legal standpoint ownership is enforced in the exact same way as taxes - through legislation and government. If you don't have legislation and a body to enforce it, there is no good way to resolve ownership disputes and your possessions could be still taken away from you with the threat of violence by more powerful individuals.

Do I think a government could exist in this way? Sure! Why not? Less room for corruption!

I haven't jet come across an idea or concept of how the government could function in a decentralized fashion without taxation. Also depending on your definition of corruption, it might actually open the gates for some times more than centralized government actually does.

Of course, I wouldn't say that decentralized systems have no place in government and/or society, there are certainly areas where they would bolster efficiency and increase the desired outcomes. Still, I'm not convinced they could function in place of government alone. Government simply has too many functions to fulfill and some of those don't lend themselves to such efforts.

That's a bold claim.... I am not so sure. People have a habit of coming together to create things, so maybe if the internet wasn't made possible by a government it would have been realized by another giant entity of sorts. Or maybe something similar but completely different would have come into existence. That is a hypothetical rabbit hole I don't want to travel too far down.

It was funded with tax dollars and international comparability was ensured through regulation and legislation. My supposedly bold claim is about the internet meaning this particular internet. The claim that something like what we have now would be possible without government support is quite questionable and there is actually evidence to support that with a lot of historical and contemporary cases of technological incomparability and standardization usually resulting from government regulations. That's why I see the claim that creating a truly global network of any sort would be much less likely without centralized standardization and regulation efforts and even if it might be possible, it would take much longer for it to evolve and/or be created. What you would be more likely to see would be many smaller networks operating in different areas and/or side by side with limited or lacking compatibility trying to keep their clients and influence. But yeah, that is a huge rabbit hole indeed :)