The Contingent Internet
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daed_a_00361.pdf
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Author(s)
Clark, David D
Date Issued
January 2016
Journal
Daedalus
Publisher
MIT Press
Citation
Clark, David D. “The Contingent Internet.” Daedalus 145, 1 (January 2016): 9–17 © 2016 David D. Clark
Version
Final published version
Abstract
The Internet is so omnipresent and pervasive that its form may seem an inevitability. It is hard to imagine a "different" Internet, but the character of the Internet as we experience it today is, in fact, contingent on key decisions made in the past by its designers, those who have invested in it, and those who have regulated it. With different choices, we might have a very different Internet today. This paper uses past choices made during the emergence of the early Internet as a lens to look toward its future, which is equally contingent on decisions being made today: by industry, by governments, by users, and by the research community. This paper identifies some of those key choices, and discusses alternative futures for the Internet, including how open, how diverse, how funded, and how protective of the rights of its users it may be.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
Terms of Use
Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1162/DAED_A_00361
