William ChopsWestfield wrote:

>> If people had calculated that way, the Internet
>> would have never been created.
>>
> You do know that the internet was largely created from a military
> experiment in "survivable communications" - how the generals can
> talk to their troops if half the wires between them are now
> radioactive holes in the ground?

This is a bit short of the full story, but yes, I knew that the DoD and
ARPANET were part of the Internet's history. 

But the point is another. The point is that if someone had made a
calculation in 1980 what it costs to send information via letter from A to
B and what it costs to maintain that network to do the same, they would
have concluded that creating the infrastructure for that network is wasted
money. In the same way as people conclude that creating a network
infrastructure of public transport is wasted money. 

There is not much that's fundamentally different between the creation of
the network of streets and roads for automobiles, the network of data
exchange called Internet or a network of public transport. In the creation
phase, it is never cost-efficient and needs targeted investment (usually
public money). Only when a certain "critical mass" of general coverage is
achieved, the real value starts to appear. Until then it just looks like a
waste of resources.

Gerhard

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