[ih] early competition and networking

[Dave Crocker]

On 4/15/2024 7:40 AM, John Day via Internet-history wrote:
> A collection of different heterogeneous networks with potentially
> different technologies, which might be multi-access, different forms of
> relaying, etc that would be interconnected by some means.

Please review your above text, and let me know what about it does not 
apply to the email world of the 1970s and 1980s. because I think it 
describes it quite nicely.


> The mail problem was much later and not the core problem.

Using 1972 as the base reference, I think 5-8 years is later, but not 
'much'.

And while I understand what you intend about 'core', consider that the 
ultimate need for a user is getting the application they use to work 
widely and reliably enough.  They don't really care about underlying 
tech.  And for quite a long time, email was /their/ view of a core 
requirement.

IP sought to create a new, basic, end-to-end data exchange 
infrastructure.  Creating infrastructure usually takes a long time.  
Gatewaying an application service can be much, much quicker.  Weeks, or 
months, rather than years.

d/

-- 
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
bbiw.net
mast:@dcrocker at mastodon.social