You can't compare the internet to Bitcoin. Sure, many people didn't know the use of it 20 years ago. But it was a completely new thing. Bitcoin is money.
Bitcoin is not money just like the internet is not a digital version of USPS... Bitcoin is a protocol/technology. One of its applications is digital cash.
Bitcoin the "protocol/technology" in your analogy would be tcp/ip.
To my knowledge, no one made a fortune buying "shares of internet." Bitcoin the "protocol/technology" can't work without itself being a currency (something with value).
Without value attached to its blocks, what is the incentive for miners? Only big miners? Then what's the trust in the protocol?
Decentralization requires the blocks to carry their own value for the miner.