That's an incredibly naive and narcissistic view of the world.

The EU is a highly centralising project. In many ways it's more centralising than the US federal government is, because the USA has a constitutional balance of powers (in theory) and has a tradition of state's rights. EU ideology recognises neither: there is no limit to the extent to which EU federalists wish to centralise power in Brussels. Some of them have talked about reducing national parliaments to the status of tourist attractions.

It's funny - usually the Hacker News set is excited about decentralisation, peer to peer networks, end to end encryption, and all other projects that give people control over their own digital lives. But when the British vote for more control over their lives, outside of the internet context, suddenly it's all obvious stupidity and can't ever be better than being controlled by a foreign power.

If you can't see any cons to the EU, you shouldn't be able to see any cons to Google completely controlling the internet. After all, it's rather convenient in many ways to have them do so: all very consistent, one passport for every website etc.

Cite?

It's like how divorced couples can often have a more positive relationship after the divorce than during the unhappy marriage.

Not as close a relationship, but a more healthy one.

Debate is great! But you really need a thicker skin and can't demand safe spaces to protect every intellectual vanity you hold.