Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : How high will Microsoft fly? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Gerald Walls who wrote (32110)	11/6/1999 2:59:00 PM
From: RTev	Respond to of 74651

And do you remember how the Internet was only used for email, ftp, and gopher before the government got out of the way and removed the ban on using the Internet for commercial purposes? The ban exists for a good reason: to prevent a government program from competing in the commercial sphere. And there was far more than what you mentioned even before the stunning commercial development of the web. From the start, telnet was one of the main reasons for the internet and one of its primary uses. The less vital but more compelling irc developed in the same miliue. Tim Berners-Lee developed www and html protocols in the same academic tradition in which those other applications were born. Even Mosaic and what would become the Apache server were developed at a University. There's no doubt that commercial development rapidly and remarkably pushed the boundaries of development, but it's not clear the the boundaries would ever have been so usefully defined it they hadn't first developed outside of the commercial space. In starting Netscape, Jim Clark made a remarkable commercial leap of faith that wasn't at all obvious. There weren't many others who saw great commercial potential in the academically messy internet. The telephone companies other than MCI and cable companies ignored it. Outfits like AOL, Compuserve, and even Microsoft saw a far different (and far more proprietary) future for personal networks. Even the old Wired with all it's self-proclaimed "vision" failed to recognize the internet as vital to the future of a wired world.