In the '90s one would speak of the internet as a superhighway with access provided by on-ramps. This is a particularly capitalistic metaphor because it assumes you would need to own a car to use the infrastructure provided by the government. This metaphor remains surprisingly durable as roads are equipped with more surveillance and cars are rife with unserviceable parts that must be updated every year or two just like your phone.
This is of course a narrow vision of what the internet and the web upon it might be. I was personally strongly influenced by an early paper suggesting public space like parks and libraries would be a better metaphor. Web as Public Space
I underestimated the degree that my little park/library called wiki could capture the attention of a large audience especially considering how it interacted with page-rank to score top placement on a broad range of subjects. This was flattering for a while but ultimately its downfall as the "attention economy" made my place overrun by those who sold attention in the name of search-engine optimization.