One of the things lawlessness produced was internationalization and de-censorship of media. That hasn't been without cost, we've had several (mostly failed, but still) political revolutions as a consequence, from Cairo to Hong Kong. At the heart of it was the ungovernability. Countries had to deal with a more or less "take-it-or-leave-it" proposition. China was the first to really break out of that restriction, and I don't think it's a coincidence that (a) a powerful country led the charge or that (b) political cencorship was the leading reason.
Another benefit (again, in my view) was a relatively open playing field, commercially. We're worried about power concentrating in the few hands fo FB, Google, and such. But, the internet economy is still a lot higher resolution than most other markets. The big markets are usually highly concentrated (eg, supermarkets, FMCGs, financial services, media, logistics, transport...) or practically confined to small scale niches: local services, real estate...
I think we've been getting cynical about this as the winners dig in, but the internet really has been a place where part time tinkerers could compete with $bn mammoths.
This is not an anarchist statement, or part of an overarching political ideology. There are, as you say, tradeoffs. There are choices that can create more or less good or bad.
Anyway, lets not count chickens just yet. We've seen China regulate the internet effectively for political control and industry protectionism. We've yet to see any country be effective on privacy. We've got the GDPR playing out this year. We've got a more active courts & legislatures. Lets see if privacy actually improves.
The worst case scenario is that we end upp with all the negative trade-offs, but all we end up with is a privacy bureaucracy that doesn't affect privacy much.
remember that we've seen one (IMO) embarrassing failure go unacknowledged: the cookie law. We got nag screens and compliance audits. We didn't get any privacy.
- single Internet jurisdiction, overriding national sovereignty; in practice this means letting America run the Internet
- National Internet jurisdictions, which potentially come with some sort of virtual border policing; Great Firewall(s)
- lawlessness, which libertarians will like but produces outcomes increasingly unacceptable to the public