How the Internet became commercial : innovation, privatization, and the birth of a new network

Author(s)

    • Greenstein, Shane M.

Bibliographic Information

How the Internet became commercial : innovation, privatization, and the birth of a new network

Shane Greenstein

(Kauffman Foundation series on innovation and entrepreneurship)

Princeton University Press, 2017, c2015

  • : paper

Available at  / 5 libraries

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Note

"Second printing, and first paperback printing, 2017"--T.p. verso

Includes bibliographical references (p. [447]-464) and index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

In less than a decade, the Internet went from being a series of loosely connected networks used by universities and the military to the powerful commercial engine it is today. This book describes how many of the key innovations that made this possible came from entrepreneurs and iconoclasts who were outside the mainstream--and how the commercialization of the Internet was by no means a foregone conclusion at its outset. Shane Greenstein traces the evolution of the Internet from government ownership to privatization to the commercial Internet we know today. This is a story of innovation from the edges. Greenstein shows how mainstream service providers that had traditionally been leaders in the old-market economy became threatened by innovations from industry outsiders who saw economic opportunities where others didn't--and how these mainstream firms had no choice but to innovate themselves. New models were tried: some succeeded, some failed. Commercial markets turned innovations into valuable products and services as the Internet evolved in those markets. New business processes had to be created from scratch as a network originally intended for research and military defense had to deal with network interconnectivity, the needs of commercial users, and a host of challenges with implementing innovative new services. How the Internet Became Commercial demonstrates how, without any central authority, a unique and vibrant interplay between government and private industry transformed the Internet.

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION 1 1 Ubiquitous Clicks and How It All Started 3 THE TRANSITION 31 2 The White House Did Not Call 33 3 Honest Policy Wonks 65 4 A Taste of Champaign 97 5 Unleashing Commercial Iconoclasts 130 THE BLOSSOMING 157 6 How Not to Start a Gold Rush 159 7 Platforms at the Core and Periphery 187 8 Overcoming Two Conundrums 215 9 Virulent Word of Mouse 243 10 Capital Deepening and Complements 272 EXPLORATION AND RENEWAL 301 11 Bill Votes with a Veto 303 12 Internet Exceptionalism Runs Rampant 335 13 The Paradox of the Prevailing View 365 14 The High Cost of a Cheap Lesson in Wireless Access 392 EPILOGUE 417 15 Enabling Innovation from the Edges 419 Acknowledgments 443 References 447 Index 465

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