Art - I have three thoughts (one historical, two dealing with power and politics) on your question; it's a fascinating question and I agree it should be asked more often. (I should note that I haven't bought Newman's book or read his diss., and can't comment on the substance of what he says.) 1> I think the short (historical) answer to your question is that many of the folks who created the Internet wanted it to be open to everyone, including commercial interests, and the most efficient way to accomplish that goal was to get private corporations involved in running the Internet (let's not forget that without corporations like Honeywell, DEC, IBM, etc, there would have been no computers to network). They didn't see privatization as a bad thing; just the opposite. For example, in the early 80s, Vint Cerf left ARPA to join MCI and make some money for himself (in interviews he talks about realizing how he didn't think a government salary would put his daughters through college). In my opinion, working for a private firm and making money off his work doesn't make Vint a bad guy; in fact his humanitarian record is outstanding (visible, for example, in his activities with the Internet Society). For the most part, the Arpanet folks wanted to concentrate on their own research, and weren't at all interested in manufacturing thousands of routers, etc. You may be familiar with the volumes edited by Brian Kahin and Jim Keller, "Coordinating the Internet" (1997) and "Public Access to the Internet" (1995) that addressed these "transition to public use" issues. 2> Your question - "if the taxpayers paid for it, why do we allow corporations and private individuals to get rich off of it?" - forces us to confront two fundamental political questions: Who is the "we"? And in what ways do we "allow"? Speaking for myself, I pay a corporation, Verizon, 50 bucks a month so I can get fast, stable access to the Internet. I don't know if they're getting rich off that or not, but I do it because they have the equipment and expertise to keep me connected. I assume other Verizon customers feel the same way. But this is a market-based conception of how we exercise power, probably not exactly what you had in mind, but I'm not sure. 3> Finally, "we" - many members of this list, including you and me - are making money off the Internet to the extent that we draw stipends, salaries, consulting fees, etc. by doing Internet research. (btw for your sake I hope a "Principal Consultant" makes more money than a grad student LOL). And of course Nathan Newman is a private individual making money by writing columns and selling his book about the Internet - 75 bucks for a hardcover copy!! So do the "private individuals" in your question include Newman, you, me, and our colleagues on this list? Andy On May 21, 2004, at 7:56 PM, Art McGee wrote:
I can imagine that their experience in the program shaped the company's ethos, which emphasized technical expertise and de-emphasized immediate commercial returns, which has turned out to be a pretty profitable approach.
That's not just the story behind Google, it's the story of the Internet itself. Folks seem to forget that pretty much the entirety of the research that created the Internet came from taxpayer-dollars, and was developed in scientific, DoD, governmental, and research environments. Of course, the question that never gets asked is, if the taxpayers paid for it, why do we allow corporations and private individuals to get rich off of it? Oops, there I go, bringing up politics and larger issues of power again:
Net Loss: Internet Prophets, Private Profits, and the Costs to Community By Nathan Newman http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0271022051/
Net Loss: Government, Technology and the Political Economy of Community in the Age of the Internet http://www.nathannewman.org/diss/
Art McGee Principal Consultant Virtual Identity Communications+Media+Technology 1-510-967-9381 artmcgee@cyberspace.org
"On the Internet, no one can tell that you're a dog, and that's a good thing, 'cause if they could, they would most likely beat you to death."
---Art McGee "USENET: alt.flame.niggers" AfroAm-L Mailing List April 17, 2004
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