When Kleinrock was able to message a friend over the ARPAnet to retrieve his shaver, the stage was set for the ARPAnet to become the internet today for communication, commerce, and information. As it seems, when products are developed, oftentimes they are used less for their intended purposes and more to solve pertinent problems. For example, super glue was developed initially for gun sights. And then its adhesiveness was discovered! It became more useful for fixing broken parts and getting fingers stuck together. Using new technologies for accomplishing tasks validates inventions and gives them a higher purpose past its original, intended use.
This use of ARPAnet and freedom to use ARPAnet led to a dramatically important precedent: the casualness of the internet. The internet is not a formal place; it feels like an extension of our every day lives full of work and play. But, this culture could not have been possible without the academics who worked on the ARPAnet outside of the military structure that it had been initially developed under. The developers started off by giving it a light-hearted and open feel, as evidenced even by RFC, which, while setting the standards for the internet, did so not as an authority, but as a peer, requesting suggestions and, well, comments.
This informality, of course, did translate into modern-day trolling. So, if you’re ever angered by YouTube comment trolls, it seems like you can blame the developers’ flaming each other. Flame wars began over everything, as they do today (peep Reddit). Even when the problems were big, the flame wars were disproportionate. Developers would fight over everything from address headers to the infamous Big Endian/Little Endian debate (fun fact: no one won). And, yet, while flame wars and trolling are representative of the human urge to fight, they also represent how open and free the internet has been from the beginning. From the get go, the internet has been about being useful, whether that’s with messaging or transferring files. This culture allowed it to grow and develop and allowed users to use it as a platform to develop on.
Take the Space Industry, for example. Rockets require massive amounts of technology and high capital costs. This means that growth and development is slow. Safety standards slow it down even further. The only recently retired Space Shuttle was using technology from the 80s, having never reached its target of bringing flight costs to less than $25,000 a flight at a frequency of 20 times a year. In fact, it barely hit 10% of either of the latter target. Now, of course, SpaceX, Blue Origin, and international organizations like ISRO are finally bringing competition to the table, but the growth is still slow. Most of the development was driven by the government and government contracts because of the high barriers of entry. On the other hand, the internet was designed so that anyone with a computer could get on and improve it/develop on it.
So that’s what they did. People like BBN engineers who were able to mess with “loop tests” and spook telephone repair men by telling them where lines were down from across the country were the pioneers in developing technologies; people just playing around and messing with stuff because they have the freedom and will to do so.
And this is the same spirit we want to encourage in your blogs! Out with homework that has one right answer, no freedom of expression, and no incentive to tie it to other aspects of your lives. Where will your mind take you after the next reading and seminar!?!