Essential Guide to Computing: The Story of Information Technology, The

Conclusion

The sudden growth of the Internet reflects two distinctly American phenomena—the ability of U.S. research universities to develop and cultivate new technology, and the ability of an agile economy to reorganize itself under pressure. The Internet's organizational model, which has no definable center and completely lacks the ability to provide centralized management, seemed ludicrous to those who had already built successful networks such as those provided by the telephone companies. The economic structure of the Internet, which is as radical as its distributed approach to management, was also derided. The traditionalists' view of the Internet's irrationality is illustrated by a single example—to the end user of the Internet, the distance ...