[ih] History from 1960s to 2025

[Dave Crocker]

On 12/18/2025 2:21 AM, Vint Cerf via Internet-history wrote:
> Jack's summary and others seem to neglect the impact of the Web, but
> perhaps the intentional focus was only on the network layers (TCP/IP,
> QUIC/UDP)? It would be hard to explain the success of the Internet without
> the HTTP addition in the early 1990s.


Several notes in this thread have cited the role of applications, as 
distinctive.

I think there are multiple lines of parallel development that are worth 
distinguishing, even as thye interacted to produce the aggregate history.

Jack's note, and many tech-oriented discussions of the history, focus on 
*packet-switching technology* evolution.  Ie, connectivity 
infrastructure.  Here, for example, Arpanet vs. Internet is a 
fundamental and essential distinction.  So, for example, from this 
perspective 1969 was /not /the beginning of the Internet.

In turn, this produced *operational services*, with it's own set of 
characteristics, issues, and evolution. (Subidividing between 
/demonstration /vs. /production /is useful for distinguish first 
occurrences from operational maturity.)

And that evolution led to *shared management/governance* activities.  
These might be counted as just part of growing services, but they have 
completely separate dynamics.

Lastly is *user experience*, which cares pretty much not at all about 
the technical detail but only what users can do.  They have no interest 
in connecting systems.  They have interest in exchanging messages, 
sharing content, chatting, and the like.

Note that they have been able to exchange messages and share content 
since the early 1970s.  The email example of this has been in continuous 
operation since then, in spite of massive changes. (As folk here know, 
but to get it into the archive, an email object from then is almost 
identical to the core of this email I am sending, 50+ years later.  The 
only major difference is the use of domain names.)

As for sharing content, Anonymous FTP worked fine, albeit with an 
atrocious user interface.  By the late 1980s, gopher worked a lot 
better.  So from the perspective of user experience, I think that saying 
the Arpanet was the early Internet is entirely reasonable.

Lastly, as nicely balanced -- and therefore as powerful -- as the Web's 
functionality, usability, and extensibility have obviously been, I think 
it facilitated Internet adoption and growth but was not essential to it.

That growth was already underway and it was fairly obvious by the time 
the Web was invented.  We are better for that niche being filled by the 
Web, but I think it clear that if it hadn't been created, both the 
global Internet and a usable form of general content sharing would have 
happened.


d/

-- 
Dave Crocker

Brandenburg InternetWorking
bbiw.net
bluesky: @dcrocker.bsky.social
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