[ih] ARPANET pioneer Jack Haverty says the internet was never finished

[Miles Fidelman]

Jack Haverty via Internet-history wrote:
>
> IMHO, if there were a ubiquitous IP-level multicast of some type that 
> could be observed to actually work in the vast reaches of the 
> Internet, people (app developers) who could use it would do so.
>
> But "ubiquitous" is important - a mechanism that only works in some 
> places isn't as valuable as one that works everywhere  (a corollary of 
> Metcalfe's Law?).   A mechanism that only exists in one or a few ISPs 
> isn't useful unless you expect all your customers to be using that 
> ISP(s), and all of the network paths your customers use (to interact 
> with their own customers etc) are also confined to that same ISP(s) 
> who support the mechanism. Those ISPs of course would need their 
> equipment vendors (routers, switches, hosts, whatever) to also play 
> the same game.
Exactly.  Which leads to two questions that still remains unclear:

- If everyone enabled it, how capable, and scalable, is the current 
version of IP multicast?  Judging from my experience with DIS, on the 
Defense Simulation Internet - it can support some very large, 
challenging, real-time training exercises (MMORPGs for folks who use 
real ammo).  But those exercises are one-offs.  A far cry from, say, 
supporting a million videochats.  What are the limits?  Are there any 
clear paths to scaling (if anyone were motivated to)?

- How much of the lack-of-support is driven by technology, how much be 
administrative complexity, how much by commercial factors?

>
> That didn't happen so people invented whatever adhoc mechanisms they 
> needed at some "higher level" where they could just write the code 
> themselves - continuing the "rough consensus and running code", and 
> put their own "servers" (e.g., CDN equipment) wherever it was needed, 
> relying only on the basic unreliable IP datagram delivery service to 
> be ubiquitous.
>
> Such "silo-ization" seems to be everywhere now and increasing 
> ....email, messaging, video chat, forums, ....

I'm not sure that's the primary explanation.

Seems to me that, back in the day, resource & information sharing were 
the prime drivers for the net - making connectivity and interoperability 
core drivers.  (C.f., Metcalfe's Law).

Since commercialization of the net, it seems like capturing market share 
has become the fundamental driver - leading to intentional creation of 
walled gardens.  Without much effective pushback.

I'm reminded of the early days of email:  There was a time when access 
to Internet email was a selling point for Compuserve.  Today, folks are 
selling private email (and chat) based on privacy, codes of conduct (or 
lack thereof), etc.  (Discord doesn't grow because it adds value, it 
grows because it's an alternative to Facebook). We're almost back to the 
days when Boston had a dozen phone companies - each promoting itself 
based on its user base - and every business needing to have a dozen 
phones on the desk.  (Kind of ironic, that Microsoft Exchange supports 
email and calendaring standards better than anybody else.)

(By the way, not a hypothetical for me, right now - as I'm about to 
launch a new venture that has a major social-networking component. 
Struggling with which standards to build around, and how to gateway to 
other environments - so that we can operate across, and independent of, 
the growing myriad of platforms.)

>
> Sigh,
> Jack
>
Sigh, indeed,
Miles
:-(

-- 
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is.  .... Yogi Berra

Theory is when you know everything but nothing works.
Practice is when everything works but no one knows why.
In our lab, theory and practice are combined:
nothing works and no one knows why.  ... unknown