As I understand, Substratum functions like a decentralised VPN. If they achieve to encrypt all communication and there's no way for the Verizon's of this world to distinguish Substratum traffic from normal web traffic, there's nothing they can do against it. Short of cutting the internet service you pay for.

The problem with centralised VPN's is your sensitive browsing data is stored in a company which can be shut down or snooped upon.

The problem with Tor is your internet traffic goes through 6 nodes before reaching the destination website, which makes it inherently slow.

Substratum, maidsafe and others could be a great inbetween solution. It can work as privacy enhancing and decentralised web when they achieve to make the internet traffic unreadable, unchangeable and keep it fast.