We could have neutrino based internet where the signal really takes the shortest path, i.e. through Earth's mantle/core.

If you can detect them, sure

It's perfect for my /dev/zero as a service!

Sounds amazing. Imagine small, inexpensive, reliable Neutrino detectors. No more bad signals on your cell phone. Reduced latency between long distance communication. No cables needed.

Forget the consumer tech, high resolution neutrino astronomy would be dope.

Not that I expect anything like that in our lifetimes.

Sure you’d get cheap detectors but then you’d be dealing with a flood of artificial neutrinos that blinds our ability to do good research on it.

Also something I haven't seen discussed yet is space servers. This has to be a great speed opportunity to orbit some server system a few hundred km above the internet sats and laser link to those rather than retrieve data back from earth.

You have to have enough long distance transmissions to make it worth it. I’m not sure that happens in practice. In other words, even if it were better, the existing status quo is good enough and has a fine price point. Earth based servers are still relatively expensive and need enough physical maintenance on a regular basis. Doing that in space becomes impossible ignoring the fact that you also have a massive cooling problem since space is one big insulator.

Given how much trouble thermals already are for Earth-based datacenters, I can't see that being economically viable for a LONG time

The edgiest hackers use Spaceflare (TM) workers at the edge of space, not just the edge of the network.