Competition definitely created the telecommunications industry and by the way most of the electric grid as well. 'The internet' as we know it was not created b

Competition definitely created the telecommunications industry and by the way most of the electric grid as well. 'The internet' as we know it was not created by DARPA. DARPA created some protocols - of which there were many, private and public. It just so happens that a certain version of it got a critical mass - it didn't have to be that way. And a lot of private interests were involved, particularly private universities. The network over which the internet was overlaid is entirely commercial - and of course most of the variation of it has been commercial, or non-governmental type NGOs, i.e consortiums. Nobody is going to argue that some projects, particularly long-term/pure R&D, or projects that literally require a scale that's out of reach of even the largest private entities, are not going to require some kind of collective participation. But the argument that competition is kafkaesque or inherently problematic because of entities competing for the same turf is short sighted.