On the collaborative documentary idea, that could definitely work. I mean, there's no rule saying you have to hold the camera for every shot!
As for the documentary, it sounds really interesting. There's a lot of things you're bringing up. In example one, you are someone who, as you say, has no use for credit most of the time. So for those of us who live more in that world, auto-renew contracts don't seem so alien. But just because I take something like that for granted doesn't mean everyone does, but companies try to treat everyone the same. There's some observations about social and cultural homogenization there too, that would be interesting to explore.
Point 2 is interesting too. In the world of software and gaming, there's more of a movement towards cloud based applications to limit licensing. What bothers me the most about that is the implication that you should have 100% internet access at all times. Net goes down due to a storm? No gaming for you. The idea that you don't own software (or movies, or music) but have a limited right to use it is troubling and a complicated question. Again, lots of stuff to explore there, and could make for a really interesting film.
Point 3 is, as you have observed, a more complex issue that progresses out of the first two. Internet censorship and regulation is a very complex issue, and the problem is the people who want to do the regulation have no idea how the technology actually works. Like attempts to prevent piracy in software, movies, music, etc, the means seem to do nothing but inconvenience legitimate users, where the people who intend on pirating already have ways around it. It's good to want to protect your intellectual property. But doing so by hampering your customers just seems like a way to have less customers.
Related observation: I'm considering switching DAWs because I dislike the changes to my weapon of choice (Sonar). I've been able to download demos of almost everything I want to try, to see if they'll actually work for me. Wanted to try Cubase (which was always awesome for audio, so-so for MIDI). You can download a demo...but you need to pay $30 for a USB key. Well and good if I decide to buy it, but otherwise, they're charging me $30 for what everyone else is providing at no charge. This is to "protect against piracy", but dollars to donuts it hasn't hampered the pirate community in the least. Just squeezing money out of someone who may want to pay for it.
China is locked down (though plenty of ways to get around that). Regulation in the UK and Australia is almost as scary. It's a complicated issue and the real question is: who would you trust to regulate things?
Lots of good stuff there; looking forward to seeing how you develop the documentary!