Abstract
As the Internet matures, so too does research on its history. It is no longer about simply chronicling the seemingly inevitable march of technology and networks. Contemporary histories are exploring the fullest range of political, economic, social, and cultural forces that created the network world shaped today by the likes of Facebook, Google, Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft. Through an interlinked set of case studies, Shane Greenstein, a professor of business administration at Harvard, tells the story through the lens of commercialization, which he defines as the process of translating innovations—that is, inventions made useful—into valuable products and services. For Greenstein, the process of commercializing innovations, and particularly the form that it takes, results from the actions of key institutions, mainly government and business. For example, the early development of the Internet was shaped by a government reluctant to permit AT&T to control data networks because it feared that the company would slow their development to favor its long-dominant telephone system. Restrictions on dominant carrier control over data networks and ultimately the breakup of AT&T opened the door to what is, for Greenstein, a key to the rapid growth of the Internet, for innovation at the edges, enabling, for example, small, young companies like Mozilla to succeed in spreading its Netscape browser.
After an introductory section describing how the military and the National Science Foundation (NSF) helped bring about commercialization, Greenstein concentrates on the 1990s’ deployment of the Internet. He gives considerable weight to the government’s continuing intervention to pursue antitrust actions against big companies, notably IBM and Microsoft, thereby enabling smaller firms setting up bulletin boards and websites, research laboratories, startups, and all manner of iconoclasts. Furthermore, the vast uncertainty at the time about whether the Internet would succeed as a commercial project led to reluctance on the part of some large firms to jump in. As a result, Greenstein insists, success depended on many small actors, a decentralized decision-making environment, diverse views and approaches, and a steady process of innovations from the margins, all of which was fostered by supportive government policies.
The book is thoroughly researched and careful not to rely on the model of institutional history to explain everything. Hence, much is made of individuals, particularly Bill Gates, who stubbornly failed to see the coming Internet and, when he did, tried desperately to defeat the opposition by any means possible, leading Greenstein to describe his actions as “penny wise and pound foolish” and the man himself as “rather unimaginative,” “too distracted to be thorough,” “overconfident in his judgment,” and “merely arrogant.” Moreover, Greenstein reflects on the power of “Internet exceptionalism,” a myth or ideology announcing that the new technology would break all previous rules about technology, business, and government, transforming the world as no previous innovation. The result was massive overinvestment in the networks and technologies that adherents believed would revolutionize everything. Instead, we got the Internet bubble and a rude awakening to the conclusion that the commercialization of the Internet did not depart substantially from familiar patterns of technological innovation such as electrification.
The book concludes with chapters on wireless and on one of the more successful of the edge innovators, Google. Beyond covering the remarkable but not unprecedented rise of the search company from a university project, the chapter on Google is striking for reminding us of the company’s innocence back then when it refused to accept advertising to avoid the appearance of biasing search results. Now advertising, delivering eyeballs and clicks to those who pay, is the bedrock of the company’s commercial success.
There is considerable strength in institutional histories like this. They remind us that there is nothing inevitable about how a new technological system develops. The role of government intervention to slow down big firms and give innovation from the edges a chance is particularly striking, especially for those puzzled by the lack of government attention to the monopolistic practices of Big Tech today. The focus on commercialization is useful, demonstrating that innovation, a popular subject in tech books, depends for success on bringing things to market. However, this emphasis is also the book’s major shortcoming because commodifying the Internet is associated with almost all of its accomplishments and none of its failures. The process of moving from the Defense Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency to the NSF and from there to the market is treated as the only way to achieve success. No consideration is given to the alternative of keeping the Internet under public control or, at least, maintaining vigorous regulatory oversight, to avoid commercial excesses such as the “fake news” issue that many believe helped give America and the world President Trump. Moreover, excessive reliance on commercialization contributed to the financial upheaval brought about by WorldCom and Enron, which gamed the network investment craze and millions of investors and employers. These were not, as the book suggests, aberrations brought on by a few greedy executives, but absolutely intrinsic to the singular focus on commercialization.
There is a lot of useful information in this well-written and thoroughly researched history. But to preserve the institutions and practices essential to democracy, including its systems of communication, we need serious debate on alternatives to the commercialization that this book makes a singular focus.