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If the FCC Had Regulated the Internet From the Start

Posted by timothy on from the council-of-wise-and-benevolent-men dept.

In the spirit of (but with a different approach than) last week's post "Is Net Neutrality Really Needed?", an anonymous reader writes with this "counterfactual history of the internet, but one that is all too plausible. Unfortunately, I can see this happening under the new 'Net Neutrality.'"

1 of 191 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Not so realistic by runningduck · · Score: 3, Informative

    Oddly enough the government did regulate the Internet in the early years. It wasn't until the early '90s that commercial activity was allowed on the Internet. Prior to that only academic and research entities were allowed. It could be argued that the early restrictive regulations of the Internet created an incubation environment that allowed the Internet to mature and surpass the offerings by commercial providers such as CompuServe and AOL.

    --
    -rd