[ih] The web as wind and whirlwind? (was Re: History from 1960s to 2025)

[Dave Crocker]

On 12/20/2025 12:28 PM, Brian E Carpenter via Internet-history wrote:
> but Tim's stateless single-ended model that didn't need any overall 
> management was just better placed for Darwinian success.

FTP and gopher were single-ended, with no central management. As, of 
course, is email.

Except for depending on the domain name service.  As does the Web.  And 
that's not a small dependency.

The Internet's evolution was all about pressing for as much single-ended 
independence (but also with collaboration) and no overall management, 
for pretty much every aspect of service. Except for the DNS as 
coordination glue.

End-to-End Arguments codified this preference.

The Web's contribution was in a type of access method that was far 
better than what had been available, and in an object format that 
presented an extremely nice balance among functionality, usability, and 
extensibility.

(And Anonymous FTP was arguably the operational start of the networked 
web...)



> RFC 1862 documents what people thought in 1994, and doesn't even 
> mention Archie. 

It never occurred to me to view that document as being as attempting to 
be as comprehensive as you suggest.


d/

-- 
Dave Crocker

Brandenburg InternetWorking
bbiw.net
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