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> That’s fairly recent. No, it's not. In the early days, everything on the internet was free. Before 1996, commercial activity on the internet was forbidden.
by denton-scratch 3y ago
> That’s fairly recent.
No, it's not. In the early days, everything on the internet was free. Before 1996, commercial activity on the internet was forbidden.
- vidarh 3y agoI ran one of many commercial ISPs in 1995 and we founded ours out of frustration with the available commercial ISPs before us. AFAIK the first commercial ISP dates to around '89. But I don't think the fact the internet once had restrictions on commercial activity really makes much difference to the argument above other than in the details, given the argument was broader than about the net.
- denton-scratch 3y agoOh, by "on the internet", I meant internet services. Sure, it cost money to get connected! So I read the argument above as being about internet services; not hardware or connectivity, that would make it hard to understand.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- vidarh 3y agoThere were commercial services on the Internet before that too, but note the comment also talked about e.g. phone services, and so more broadly about paying for services, not just internet.