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Google admits the open web is in ‘rapid decline’
(www.theverge.com)
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this post was submitted on 08 Sep 2025
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Came out of government-funded research actually. Back when we could still achieve scientific feats on behalf of our country.
It was private at that time. My point is that it spread so quickly to millions of people worldwide because of capitalists specifically the telecom companies and ISPs stepping in. Without them, the internet could never have developed on such a scale.
The telecom companies got paid by the government to do it, they just as easily could have paid themselves to do it but we as a society are allergic to the idea of taking money out of the hands of poor billionaires and their potential profits
That doesn’t undermine my argument that it was ultimately because of the capitalists that the internet spread in the first place.
It does undermine your argument though, because you are saying that it only spread because of capitalists. I'm telling you it spread because of government funding and capitalists were just the medium by which the funding was used. The capitalist part is replaceable and unnecessary.
It doesn’t work just by you saying it. According to multiple sources, the government clearly didn’t want to fund commercial internet and largely backed out during the 90s.
It doesn’t matter if you think it’s replaceable, I can make that claim too. What matters is what actually happened in reality.
Could you explain how it doesn't undermine your argument?
Clarified here
And how would you know without the internet being developed under a different system at the time?
That’s not an argument. I don’t need to speculate on hypotheticals when reality already proves the point.
The internet would not have existed without government investment. Back when the idea of the internet was being floated around in the early 1960s the US government did contact every major telecom company in the country snd all flat out refused meaning the government had to publically foot the bill (and the work).
No, capitalists would never, ever have invented the internet.
And I never said that they invented the internet.
No, but you implied it, and you also implied that the reason we have it grow as it did is because of the government. This is bullshit. Capitalists did not invent that or the system anymore than they would have invented telegraphy, radio, telephones, and other such stuff. Even shit like the telephone was done initially out of a 'hey do you think it can be done?' by Alexander Graham Bell (And yes, I am sure you will bring up Elisha Grey and the race to the patent office, but even that is irrelevant).
I’ve made my case, and I never said that. What you do with this information is up to you.
You are speculating on hypotheticals though, since no one can know for certain how things would have unfolded in a different world.
I'm not even going to argue that capitalism doesn't get you some positive outcomes for certain people.
How am I speculating when my argument is based on reality?
You're speculating that an internet wouldn't have emerged without capitalism. Capitalism exists, therefore we can't know if that's true or not.
Exactly, we can’t know if that’s true or not, but we do know it emerged in reality because of capitalism. That’s all we need to make a case for capitalism, since real-life examples always outweigh imaginary ones.