In order to understand the wonder that the Internet and various other components of the Net represent, we need to understand why the ARPANET Completion Report ends with the suggestion that the ARPANET is fundamentally connected to and born of computer science rather than of the military.
The Completion Report goes on to differentiate the research ARPA supported from the research done by the computer industry: The computer industry, in the main, still thinks of the computer as an arithmetic engine. Their heritage is reflected even in current designs of their communication systems. They have an economic and psychological commitment to the arithmetic engine model, and it can die only slowly.12 The Completion Report further analyzes this problem by tracing it back to the nations universities: furthermore, it is a view that is still reinforced by most of the nations computer science programs. Even universities, or at least parts of them, are held in the grasp of the arithmetic engine concept.13
Computer networking was developed and spread widely in an environment outside of commercial and profit considerations, an environment that supported such research."
Michael Hauben
Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet (1997)
IEEE Computer Society Press
ISBN 0-8186-7706-6
HN commenters/voters may reject the use of the term "military" in the origin story of the internet
That's fine
However it was American taxpayers, through the _Department of Defense_, that financed the creation of the internet
That's government spending, not "American capitalism"
The original internet was non-commercial and was not the result of "American capitalism"
As above, the American computer industry (capitalism) at the time was not focused on computer networking and using computers for communication, it was focused on computers as "arithmetic engines"
Take your Reddit tier America bad slop back to Reddit.
American capitalism can create ARPA but capitalism did not create the internet
Neither American companies, nor "private citizens" looking to profit, paid for the research into computer networking that resulted in the internet. At that time, there was no commerercial incentive to support such research
"Computer networking was developed and spread widely in an environment _outside_ of commercial and profit considerations, an environment that supported such research."
Hauben, Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet (1997)
Without American capitalism, specifically "Big Tech", there would be no "age verification" legislation
Let's cut to the chase. The "age verfication" problem has nothing to do with "American capitalism" or other silly HN tangents. The issue is the lack of rules governing governing data collection, surveillance and advertising, rules that would interfere with the Big Tech "business model". "Age verification" will be another means of data collection for Big Tech but it could also intefere with Big Tech's access to U16 ad targets. It could interere with "indoctrination" into a belief system where Big Tech _is_ the internet
The truth is that the internet does not require "Big Tech" in order to exist and have value. I know this because I used it before so-called "tech" companies existed and, with respect to the state of the art _at that time_, it was amazing. Information was shared between internet users without any attempt to profit from it financially. Today, so-called "tech" companies intermediate (act as a middleman for) the sharing of other peoples' information over the internet in order to profit from data collection, surveillance and advertising. This is unnecessary
The myth that commenters supporting Silicon Valley try to spread is that the internet can only exist and have value if "Big Tech" exists. Their "business model" is "free" intermediation of information retrieval or communication over the internet, thus their argument in favor of status quo becomes something like "online advertising (and associated data collection and surveillance) is essential for the internet to survive"
Their next argument may be that a "healthy AI ecosystem" is necessary for the internet to survive
In fact, the internet was born out of the American military, i.e., government, and American universities, not "American capitalism"
The first time I used this internet, there were rules against using it for commerce
The original internet had rules against using it for commercial activity
It lacked "economic freedoms"
FWIW I still found it worth using at the time, despite no so-called "tech" companies
It also lacked websites of unmanageable size with hundreds of millions of pages of user-generated content used as bait to lure in ad targets for data collection and surveillance, so-called "platforms" or "social media"
It lacked "age verification" to access those websites because those websites did not exist
There will be at least one HN reply arguing that the original internet sucked, or some other brainless dismissal
As if the internet we have now does not suck. Clearly, it does suck for some people
It is not a lack of "economic freedoms" on the internet that has led to "age verification". It's quite the opposite
This was before the www
Oh, wait...