[ih] Internet History - from Community to Big Tech?

[Jack Haverty]

An interesting perspective on Internet History landed on my screen today:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/cognitiveworld/2019/03/15/society-desperately-needs-an-alternative-web

One premise of the article (and the underlying ones it references,
especially Chris Dixon's article) is that the technical evolution of the
Internet has gone through stages.  The early stage was one in which the
"Internet Community" drove the development of the open protocols used
pervasively.   The second stage saw the "Big Tech" companies take over,
building on top of, and sometimes replacing, the earlier open
protocols.  The next stage, now emerging, sees governments and
regulations appear to (try to) exert some level of control on how the
technology affects society.

This view struck a chord with my personal experience over those first
two stages.  For example, back in the 70s/80s we had electronic mail of
several kinds, mostly interconnected.  People on SMTP-mail, UUCP,
Compuserve, MCIMail, etc. could communicate, if perhaps awkwardly. 
Today, I know people who have their mailboxes on SMTP-mail, and
Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and even game platforms, and there are
many more.  But mostly they can't inter-communicate, and I need an
account on each one, and need to log in to each to read and send
electronic mail in each walled garden.

All of these now constitute what people call "The Internet."

In the discussions on this list, I've mostly seen a historical view of
the Internet from the "Internet Community" perspective - i.e., the
genealogy of protocols documented in RFCs, IENs et al and driven by
organizations such as IETF, etc.

But in the actual "Internet" I'm wired into, I see a very different
world.  Mysterious protocols are in use to do something unknowable
because they're secret.   Protocols I see in the RFCs as "Internet
Standards" aren't always the ones that are actually used in the real
world (e.g., email).

This experience seems to match the notion of the two "stages" of the
Internet, where the technical development of the running hardware and
software moved from the "Internet Community" of IETF et al into the
Engineering departments of the Big Tech companies.  I spent a good bit
of my time both in "Stage One" and "Stage Two", but haven't seen much
written about Stage Two events and experiences, or about how
organizations such as IETF have changed.

It seems like that transition was an important part of Internet History,
but when it happened, how, who, why, etc., aren't discussed much.

What do you think.....?

/Jack Haverty