There was going to be something to fill the void, the questions there are "when?" and "for how much?", no private company would deploy novel inter-networks comm

There was going to be something to fill the void, the questions there are "when?" and "for how much?", no private company would deploy novel inter-networks communication for cheap since it was an unproven technology. No private company would want to make it open for competitors to use the network, monopolistic tendencies don't naturally go away in the private sector, much the opposite.