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

[Karl Auerbach]

On 12/20/25 9:39 PM, Andrew Sullivan via Internet-history wrote:
> On Sun, Dec 21, 2025 at 05:33:22PM -0500, Brian E Carpenter via 
> Internet-history wrote:
>> A subsidiary question is when, and why, the Internet became the 
>> internet.

I use both the "I" and "i" forms.

I use the capital I form to refer to the now worldwide (and beyond?) 
network that encompasses the endpoints reachable via IPv4 and IPv6 
addresses, as well as the machinery that moves packets between those end 
points.  In other words I use the "I" form to refer to a fairly specific 
thing.

On the other hand I use the lower case form to refer to the technology 
used to create the capitalized Internet as well as any other lower-case 
internets, each with its own full IPv4 or IPv6 address space and end 
points and links, that can (and I believe have been) created for various 
purposes.

(I am far from consistent in this usage of the "I" and "i" forms.)

One of the reasons I do this is that I am much of the belief that our 
capital "I" Internet is slowly undergoing a transformation. Much as the 
Internet is "a network of networks", I am of the belief that we are 
evolving to "a network of networks of networks".  I've referred to this 
as the "island and bridge" model in which entire lower-case internets 
come to be, each with its own IPv4 or IPv6 address space (the existing 
capital Internet being but one of these).  These internets, in this 
model, are mutually suspicious and often only self-interest 
cooperative.  These internets are connected by tightly guarded bridges - 
which in my mind would be application-level bridges (with plenty of 
filters and firewall functions) that proxy application level traffic, 
not IP packets, across those bridges.

A key aspect to this is a change in the minds of users that "the net" is 
a collection of applications rather than a system that moves packets 
end-to-end.  In this changed mindset what matters to users is not the 
elegance of the underlying plumbing but rather than ones favorite 
applications work (no matter how ugly is the underlying machinery that 
gets the data from hither to yon.)

Another key aspect to this is that so many of our application protocols 
are designed to be relayed and proxied at the application layer.  This 
allows deployment of application level gateways (distinct from network 
address translators) as means to interconnect diverse spaces.

I wrote about this in 2016 in a somewhat long-ish note "Internet: Quo 
Vadis (Where are you going?)" at 
https://www.cavebear.com/cavebear-blog/internet_quo_vadis/

Although what I wrote about in 2016 has not yet happened there are 
continuing signs that this change is happening, albeit at a pace that is 
slow even by "glacial" metrics.  To my mind, the rise of things such as 
the commercial DNS resolvers by Google (8.8.8.8), Cloudflare (1.1.1.1), 
Comcast (75.75.75.75) is one sign.  And the rise of the walled garden 
worlds of Facebook, Tiktok, and of federated social networking are 
further signs that cracks are forming.

         --karl--