How the Internet was Stolen

I look at the history of the internet, from ARPANET & NSFNET, through privatization, to Tim-Berners Lee, Yahoo, Netscape, Google, eBay, and Facebook, examining Microsoft's antitrust court case and their battle against Open Source and Free Software, Bill Gate's Open Letter to Hobbyists and the leaked Halloween Documents. Then we take a look at the emergence of Surveillance Capitalism, and how platforms like AirBnb & Uber coopt the idea of the community and lobby politicians. Finally, we take a look at some alternatives.

Thank you to @WereInHell @zoe_bee @Tom_Nicholas @epochphilosophy @RadicalReviewer @unlearningeconomics9021 @James_Muldoon for their help with this video.

Chapters:

00:00 – Introduction to the History of the Internet
04:06 – Building the Net
20:37 – The Browser Wars (Microsoft vs the United States)
44:35 – The Californian Ideology (eBay, Yahoo, Google and the Libertarian Mind)
01:07:26 – The Raiding of Privacy (Surveillance Capitalism)
01:18:05 – Facebook
01:26:07 – The Theft of the Community (Airbnb & Uber)
01:40:31 – No Place (Utopian Dreams)
01:49:38 – Open Source vs Microsoft
01:59:24 – Conclusion: Politics, Policy, and Alternatives

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Credits:

[privatenorby]

Surprised you didn't mention how Google used to have the phrase "don't be evil" in their corporate motto, but secretly erased it some years ago.

[groadybones]

Corporations should not be allowed to lobby governments. Why tf do we treat corporations like real people. It's fucked

[Romashka_Sov]

Google in 1998: "We expect that advertising funded search engines will be inherently biased towards the advertisers and away from the needs of the consumers. Gis type of bias is very difficult to detect, but could still have a significant effect on the market. We believe the issue of advertising causes enough mixed incentives that it is crucial to have a competitive search engine that is transparent and in the academic realm" (1:00:56)
Google 25 years later:

[Jasontyo]

Lobbying seems to be the single largest problem in all of human society.

[edwardlwittlif]

I first logged into the internet when I was seven years old in 1997. Ever since, I've watched with dismay as what used to be a wild world of freedom and creativity has been gradually colonized, piece by piece, by big business, a space that once felt functionally infinite now consolidated into a handful of privately owned platforms.

This video is an incredible piece that provides real context about, and insight into, the withering of that dream. Thank you.

[gavz]

Having worked for a big silicon valley tech firm for 11.5 years, I'm a firm believer that we need alternatives. They simply wield too much control over our lives and data. We need to be able to break free from their imposed shackles.

[saltedslug]

Those of us who yearn for the "old" web are still there, but maybe in smaller numbers. What Neocities is doing to revitalize the personal website is wonderful, but it's still a very small community. Webrings pop up here and there occasionally, as do link farms and archives of old web design images. I think what the Internet Archive is doing is some of the most important work in the world right now. I don't want the younger generations to forget or never know what the Internet WAS and what it could be. I tell all my students about it. In summer school, I had my younger kids code their own personal websites and showed them examples of what things used to be like. I educate them about the mindset of the "personal" Internet before social media. I hope it makes a difference, but it is hard to swallow the sense of dread and impending doom ever-building in my throat about our trajectory as a species.

Thank you for creating this work. You really nailed every moment in this unique history poignantly and fairly.

[icvideoservices]

Very good summary. As someone who has worked "on the internet" in various IT jobs, it's good to see such an accurate description of the history.

[groadybones]

Bill Gates: "Wah, software shouldn't be free, unless I need to undercut a market."

[theethans]

I feel more like I used to swim around freely in the ocean but someone has dropped huge nets and is trying to keep me in a bubble of approved information and narratives

[thefrayedends]

Kind of crazy that this 2-hour doc barely even scratched the surface lol

[nightlightxcc]

"We expect that advertising funded search engines will be biased towards advertisers"

>Ads by Google

[landrec]

This hit hard.
Gimmicky crap has replaced the cool and interesting internet I first logged into. Shopping malls that spy on you- is a good description of how things are now. Hopefull that things will change, people will reject this crap. Excellent editing and production here.

[pennywaldrip]

I lived through all of this, and had only a slim awareness of most of it even happening. Now it turns my stomach to have the history listed out so clearly in "these people warned" followed by "and here that thing happened."

[bxvojcr]

Internet was once a fun place. Now maybe it's not so much. As a grown ups who knew the world a little bit better, I know how this works. The touch of the politicians are always death touch XD

[SupramanRambled]

I have watched this video multiple times, shared it with friends, and I will never not be blown away by how well edited the intro segment is.

[Dark_Tesla]

It’s criminal how under appreciated this channel is.

[_Stin_]

I started coding in 1985, in the village infant school, on a BBC I think it was. I remember getting dial-up in high school - just the one Acorn A5000.

I was so enthused by the prospect and possibilities of an interconnected community of academics, engineers and scientists. I had used JANet and saw the rise - and subsequent, prolonged corruption - of the Internet in real-time and, after watching this, I am so happy and relieved that someone with the resources and ability created such a perfect chronology of how the Internet got used and abused by private profit interests. I'm so, so glad I'm not the only one who has noticed this.

It was a hell of a kick on the head when adverts and even registering to use sites started popping up. I knew at that point that the cracks in the fabric of the Internet were getting much more obvious. Kids nowadays probably wouldn't be able to comprehend an Internet where you weren't tracked or registered in some database. Hell, I even remember when all you had to do to get a domain name was to ask nicely and give a reason of what you wanted to use it for. No money, just justification. Whereas today, you don't have to justify, just have the money. And don't get me started on cookies and the chaos that is vanity TLDs.

I'm thinking of joining the Gopher revolution and returning to a 1980s Internet - no 'algorithm', no cookies, no crap, no adverts, no tracking and it's soooo much faster lol

The Internet was never made for commercial use and we're seeing the result of the misuse of the technology. And have you seen QUIC?? Such a hack.

Subscribed!

[minxyone]

This was so well made and well done. There is so much more and so many rabbit holes that you could have chased down on this topic, but I think you made the best choices to make your points and to support them with really great research and examples.

[DaemonetteLeilu]

As a california native, i miss the days when silicon valley was still developing and filled with new startups, mom n pop shops, and innovation. Now its just a mess of greedy corporations that consume everything in sight, including people that have lived there for decades before and new comers