WSJ claims gov't didn't invent internet, the author they cite claims otherwise

[feralkid]

NASA did great things but right now NASA has to rent rides into space from the Russians.

Aren't budget cuts wonderful?

 

[Phokus]

Dude, you're trying too hard. The internet was privatized 20 years ago and current involvement by the government is minimal, fairly inconsequential, and related to standards and such. And most importantly more involvement is massively unwanted by basically the entire internet community. Even now when the government gets involved they generally make things worse, e.g. the whole IP patent debacle we're living through now being enabled by the Patent Office.

And back to my original point, even if the government still completely ran the internet, that STILL wouldn't be reason to support any of the progressive agenda or to reject a rethinking of the proper size and scope of government. With all this "government is great and built the internet" you're starting to sound like Al Bundy and his "four touchdowns in one game" speech. I don't know why you expect everyone to be singing the praises of government for having built roads or whatnot because that's what government is supposed to do, hell even Republicans can manage that.

LMAO, you said the government hasn't been invovled in the internet in 20 years. Clearly you're wrong. IPV6 is not 'inconsiquential', considering we're running out of ipv4 addresses (if we haven't already), it's pretty fucking important.

Also, Onion Routing/Tor isn't just a 'standard', it's new technology and really important for people who live in countries where they censor the internet (and may be necessary here in the future, at the rate we're going).

Are you right about ANYTHING EVER?

 

[blankslate]

Netscape was having issues and was destined to die a slow and miserable death.

While the part about Netscape starting to have issues is true.

It doesn't change the fact that what Bowfinger said about Microsoft turning it's focus to the internet from some other thing they were working on in response to Netscape is also true

After some people started talking Netscape up as a common interface on several operating systems that could be used to not just browse the web but also do some common tasks (like manipulating files) on with the computer itself... Microsoft saw that as a threat to its OS

As a response Microsoft incorporated it's browser directly into the operating system since, at the time, non-techies would just use the browser already included instead of searching out a third party alternative.