The United States government doesn't govern all that well. We'll concede that. But the American private sector does deliver unbelievable things. [...] And we're sitting here at the end of a period of extraordinary technical innovation. And not just -- I mean, the Internet, we're all familiar with. But all kinds of products, and products that people want.
That lie – the defenders of unrestrained capitalism staking claim to the Internet as if it was the product of the out-of-the-box genius of private industry – is becoming very annoying. How many times do we have to explain that the Internet in general was the product of public research and investment, and that the Web in particular was invented by a scientist who wanted to share research results in a way that mostly undermined the profits of professional journals?
The first businesses to colonize the government-sponsored Internet were pornographers, who found broader reach and lower overhead relative to subscriber-based bulletin board services. Pornography enthusiasts drove the development of digital imaging, embracing emerging technology like standard image formats, cheap digitizers and high-fidelity display buffers. And yet, like the Internet itself, these pioneers were inspired by a desire to share more widely the products of their labors, and not by profit for the most part.
If this is the communist legacy that David Frum wishes to embrace, fine. He just needs to understand who he’s hugging. And what diseases they might be carrying.
- jack*
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