I think there's a difference between "you can speak" and "you can speak in such a way that interested people can hear". The former is not very useful in terms of the right people usually think of as "freedom of speech"; the limiting case of it in the physical world is "you can speak, but only in your own home". So what, if anything, makes for an online version of the public square, where one can go to present speech for consideration by others?
Also, I think online speech is more similar to physical-world speech than you make it out to be. You can't speak online without "imposing" on your hosting provider, their ISP, etc. If you self-host, you "impose" on your own ISP (and probably violate their ToS, if you have a residential connection). You "impose" on your domain registrar. These are all private entities, so you have the same sorts of issues as you allude to for the physical world. And these private entities have been known to restrict the speech of people relying on their services, so this is not a hypothetical risk.
I think there's a difference between "you can speak" and "you can speak in such a way that interested people can hear". The former is not very useful in terms of the right people usually think of as "freedom of speech"; the limiting case of it in the physical world is "you can speak, but only in your own home". So what, if anything, makes for an online version of the public square, where one can go to present speech for consideration by others?
Also, I think online speech is more similar to physical-world speech than you make it out to be. You can't speak online without "imposing" on your hosting provider, their ISP, etc. If you self-host, you "impose" on your own ISP (and probably violate their ToS, if you have a residential connection). You "impose" on your domain registrar. These are all private entities, so you have the same sorts of issues as you allude to for the physical world. And these private entities have been known to restrict the speech of people relying on their services, so this is not a hypothetical risk.