“The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.” – Barack Obama
What a surprise, Obama got that wrong – completely. L. Gordon Crovitz in the Wall Street Journal tells what actually happened. It was Xerox.
But full credit goes to the company where Mr. Taylor worked after leaving ARPA: Xerox. It was at the Xerox PARC labs in Silicon Valley in the 1970s that the Ethernet was developed to link different computer networks. Researchers there also developed the first personal computer (the Xerox Alto) and the graphical user interface that still drives computer usage today.
And, of course, Steve Jobs appears in there as well. The fact is that once the government got out of their vestigial involvement in the internet in the 1990s, private business made it into what it is today.
All Obama knows how to build is regulations, dependency and deficits.
UPDATE: A counter argument from Ars Technica via Thomas in comments.
There were a few things in that article that bothered me. Here’s a good rebuttal: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/07/wsj-mangles-history-to-argue-government-didnt-launch-the-internet/
Interesting. Thanks for the link.
Thank Instapundit!