Considering the current laws, would it be better if the govt did invent the internet? If it had been invented in the ‘free’ market, I wonder how much protection that invention would’ve received, thus adding to the cost of it’s use. I’ve never really thought about that, have you? Kinda weird (in a way).
If the government did all the research you indirectly paid for that. In the free market that cost is carried by the investors. If your considering whether it would be more expensive had it been developed completely by a private group of investors in our current economy that is a different question. It would have to be more be more expensive to each individual user since the cost of development is spread over every tax payer as opposed to directly to the end user
That’s different because the internet is something that is actually useful.
.
I recognize the moral bankruptcy of the statist system, But the fact is that in this particular case the state did provided something valuable for society(even it wasn’t for the right reasons and using immoral means)
But again, the argument could be made, that without the state, we might’ve had internet since way before.
I was referring to things like patents or intellectual property. If someone had pieced together the internet and had it patented, this may have limited the power of this new tool. So if the internet was invented by non-government employees instead of government employees, would it have flourished as well as it has?
Even if it is better for a govt employee to invent the net instead of a non-govt employee, based on current political realities and laws, the net effect of govt dabbling in the economy is negative. Under the consequences of either outcome, both came about under some level of government coercion. In this instance it appears that coercive force A, a government employee, is less destructive that coercive force B, patent laws. This doesn’t consider the costs leading up to it’s invention; this only considers costs and benefits after it’s invention. I believe the costs before it’s invention would be a net negative for society in either case.
Prove it.
Actually, I’ll save you the effort. Without the price system you can’t prove this.
I made a similar comment at Kitco:
“To me, what all this economic collapse is showing us is how costly the socialization of cost is. Usually, the socialization of costs and the growth of government is insidious and incremental, but in this current case, we’re seeing the weight of such costs in crystal clear relief because those sectors have yet to be fully engulfed by socialism. If socialism had a greater hold, we’d never see anything that gives us feedback on costs. All the cost incurred by an oppressive, meddlesome regime would be obscured by the governments usurpation of markets.”
People are willing to pay for internet access so that proves it’s valuable to them.
The price system proves that the internet is valuable.
Yes, people pay for it now. There’s no way possible to prove it was profitable at the time or that the government implemented it in the most profitable way.
There is no possible way to prove that any product would be profitable before it is available in the market, you can only speculate.
The government implemented it in the less profitable way, they used it for military purposes,it was not until the technology was in hands of the free market that it truly provided an important service to society.
You’re quite correct and yet that is not my point. My point is that immediatly after it was available there would be no way to tell that it’s profitable.
Yes, and they are regret it very much.
"As soon as completed, it will be possible for a business man in to dictate instructions, and have them instantly appear in type at his office in or elsewhere. He will be able to call up, from his desk, and talk to any telephone subscriber on the globe, without any change whatever in the existing equipment. An inexpensive instrument, not bigger than a watch, will enable its bearer to hear anywhere, on sea or land, music or song, the speech of a political leader, the address of an eminent man of science, or the sermon of an eloquent clergyman, delivered in some other place, however distant. In the same manner any picture, character, drawing, or print can be transferred from one to another place. Millions of such instruments can be operated from but one plant of this kind. More important than all of this, however, will be the transmission of power, without wires, which will be shown on a scale large enough to carry conviction."
Nikola Tesla, 1908
There you go. Proof that the concept of the Internet predates the Internet by almost a century. The private sector could have easily built such a system before government did, if its resources were not confiscated by government. Think of the trillions of dollars lost in World War One, World War Two, the Manhattan Project, NASA…
Nice. Thanks for posting that.
Apologies ahead of time for any sarcastic tone or offense. This one is a real pet peave of mine.
Honestly, the fact that this is being discussed is stunning to me. The idea that it was a US government pet project from the beginning is actually historically inaccurate. The US government loves to claim it (like everything else) as “their idea,” however in reality it was developed by university scientists starting in the 1960s in the hopes that they could come up with a system for rapid, wide-area communication for scientific and research purposes. According to the Internet Society (ISOC.org), the order of events goes something like this:
1961 - Leonard Kleinrock (MIT) publishes the first paper (1961) on Packet Switching Theory.
August 1962 - Scientist JCR Licklider (MIT) developed the first concept of a “Galactic Network.” It is not a published work, but a series of memos exchanged between colleagues (at least that is the impression I get). In October of that same year, Licklider becomes the first head for computer research at DARPA, however he is responsible for the internet only by frameworking the idea of a Network and by convincing other DARPA personnel of the importance of the topic when other scientists build on his idea and submit to DARPA for funding. Licklider drops off the radar from network research at this time.
1964 - Kleinrock publishes the first book (1964) on Packet Swithcing Theory. Kleinrock’s work - along with that of Licklider - convinces fellow MIT researcher Lawrence G. Roberts of the feasibility of a network, and the two commence work on the first network.
1965 - L. G. Roberts, working with Thomas Merrill of California, successfully connects a TX-2 computer in Massachusettes with a Q-32 computer in California using a dial-up connection. It is officially recognized as the world’s first wide area network, and is the beginning of the internet as such. It is a proof of concept for Dr. Licklider’s idea of the Galactic Network.
Late 1966 - L. G. Roberts applies for and receives funding from DARPA to continue research and development of the network. The project at this point becomes monopolized by the US government - with the exception of small, independently developed networks that begin popping up in the 1970s - and will not again see the light of day until 1985. Note that the DARPA network would later become the Department of Defense backbones which remain classified in their wiring, switching, et cetera locations and inaccessible to the public to this day.
1970s - Small, purpose-built networks crop up from time to time; however, with the exception of USENET and BITNET, these networks are restricted to groups of scholars for use on specific research, and none are intercompatible.
1973 - TCP/IP is conceptualized.
1 January 1983 - DARPA’s ARPANET switches completely to a TCP/IP system, replacing the older NCP systems.
1985 - the US National Science Foundation (NSF) develops the NSFNET. However, it is the monopoly of government funded academic organizations and users are banned from any use of the system for anything other than research and educational purposes under the Acceptable Use Policy (AUP). During this same time, communication finally begins between DARPA, other government agencies, and private vendors on development of TCP/IP systems outside of strict US Government only use. Most vendors, however, are still producing for government contract.
April 1995 - the NSF terminates public funding of its network and turns over funding and technology to private ISPs beginning the internet as we know it today. However, the internet is not open to definition. It is given (in October of the same year) a legal definition which makes it so that only TCP/IP systems can be considered “internet” thus representing a forced transition of all networking systems to TCP/IP.
Working source, Internet Society (ISOC): http://www.isoc.org/internet/history/brief.shtml
So, no, the Government did not “develop the internet.” The internet had already been developed to the point of proof of concept. The government then stepped in and funded the continuation of the project using stolen money. In all likelihood, had tax rates not been as exorbidant (sp?) as they were in the 1960s and had Roberts and his colleagues been able to convince business leaders of the potential profits of such a system - which they probably would have been able to do - it is unlikely that DARPA would have been the one funding it. Money down it would have been IBM or some other major manufacturer of the time who did the funding. People who like to say, “but government invented [insert pet project here]” neglect the fact that the government far more often squelches scientific research than encourages it. When people have to go begging before Uncle Sam (or whoever) to scratch up enough money to pursue their projects, it destroyes innovation, not encourages it.
There you have it…the history of the internet in a nutshell. Did the government fund it and fascilitate it? Yes, absolutely. However, to believe that private industry - if allowed to its own ends instead of wantonly robbed by the government - would not have done the same is at best naive. In fact, had the internet been developed through private industry, it probably would have been developed faster, and people probably would have been reaping its benefits long before now. Instead, through DARPA, it was kept as a wonderfully secret pet project of the government, hidden from private investors and the public eye until the government let the cat out of the bag, and then, “zowee!!! Government gave us the internet!” Balogna! Government didn’t give us the internet, they witheld it from us until there were so many tiny, incompatible networks running around as scientists played guessing games as to how it was done that the government finally let things out. Then, when it didn’t move fase enough for them, when scientists continued searching for better ways, they forced the DARPA/NSF method on private industry with no consideration for efficiency or desiere of the scientists themselves. Internet was delayed from use by private enterprise for nearly thirty years, not being fully privatized until 1995, because of this kind of stupidity. The only exception to this was small networks that only cropped up where people could scratch together enough funding and capital to construct local- and wide-area networks. However, thes LANs and WANs were nothing like what we see today because of the sheer mass of capital that was drained from the economy by overtaxation and inflation during the 1960s and 1970s.