I guess you're not into networking? If so, perhaps what seems obvious to me isn't obvious to you: the network is the toy. Building it is the game. The purpose isn't the things you can do with it, it's how you do them and who you do them with. Two cans and a piece of string is still fun in the age of cellphones, and a treehouse is still fun to be in when you have a nice living room with a telly.

If the idea of setting up one of these doesn't sound like fun in its own right, I wouldn't recommend attempting it.