I think this whole Minitel story is fascinating and should be used as an example of why a free and open internet is always necessary. This shows what happens when you have a locked-down, closed system controlled by private companies and government. There was no room to allow innovation, stagnating until the www put the nail into its coffin.
The web had a much, much faster "OODA" loop than competing platforms, and it had a much easier route to being more widely used. Sometimes we fail to see elegance because we see right through it.
But on the other hand, you do get all the benefits of the advanced technology 10 years before the rest of the world. It's easy to scoff now, but remember what Newton said about standing on the shoulders of giants. And remember that ARPAnet could easily have gone the same way, it was also a govt-backed project...
Although I agree with your overall point that the early Web is essentially a creation of the government (and of individual programmers) and not of the free market, I disagree that CERN had anything important to do with the Web.
The extent of CERN's sponsorship of the development of the Web was that Tim Berners-Lee obtained permission from his boss to work on it during work hours. His boss's main reason for giving the permission was that he wanted CERN to start evaluating NeXT, Inc, as one of CERN's suppliers, and development of this Web thing seemed just as good a test of NeXT's marketing claims about the excellence of its development environment as anything else.
Probably the biggest way that CERN helped was by providing a good living for a relatively large population of potential early adopters of the Web. (Before the "discovery" of the internet by the mainstream media in 1993, adoption of the internet was almost completely by very-high-IQ folks.)
ADDED. The much more important point, though, is the fact that when Tim BL started developing the Web, the Internet was a very fertile and welcoming environment for experimentation. If you are on Linux or Mac, take a look at /etc/services and realize each of the port numbers you see listed in that file is an experiment. (Note that most of the least successful experiments might not have made it into that file.) I tend to agree with those who say that if Tim BL hadn't invented the Web, it would not have taken long for someone else to invent something similar (something that allows owners of web sites to create experience on graphical UIs that are more compelling that the plain text that was dominant on the Internet till then).
In discussions like this about which individuals and organizations caused an important technological development, it is important to keep in mind one's reasons for wanting to know. My reason for wanting to know how much of the Web and the Internet was caused by government is that it helps me decide how likely government-employed or government-funded individuals are to contribute to future important innovations.
Me too :) I used HyTelnet to make my first visit to a web page. HyTelnet's gimmick was that you did not need to install a web client (browser) -- you could use the Telnet client you already had installed.
Well, yes and no. The article makes the point that to provide a service on Minitel, you had to get the permission of the French incumbent monopoly telco. But the reason you can experiment freely on the Internet is that your ISP or company has gotten permission in the form of a block of IP addresses from a central authority, registered a unique name with another authority, etc. You don't see it because it's hidden behind intermediaries and perhaps take it for granted, but the Internet isn't inherently more open than Minitel; it just happens to have historically been run that way. It could easily have played out that you had to prove that you were a registered nonprofit to get a .org, etc.
The article is very biased and for some points with factual errors:
> This meant that even the poorest of households contained a set, subsidised by the taxpayer.
It was a freemium model, France Telecom was making a lot of money and was able to fund the Minitel without tax payer money. In fact, France Telecom was a cash cow for the government, not a single time took France Telecom money from the tax payers.
Also, my grand parents were able to use it, basically everybody could use it, the Internet took off extremely well in France across all the generations because it was possible to say: "this is like the Minitel, just type here the address, and there you go".
I did introduction courses to learn how to use Internet in the late 90's and for the 100's of people I helped, the Minitel analogy was perfect and allowed us to move forward extremely fast.
Edit: Thinking about it, this is the same model as the app store. To sell on the app store, you need to ask Apple first. You had to ask France Telecom at that time.
Thinking about it, this is the same model as the app store.
Here is an analogy with WWW vs. Minitel case.
Does Apple allow multiple alternative app stores? If not, then Android should eventually make it obsolete, since you do not have to 'ask Google' to create and market a mobile app there.
»"not a single time took France Telecom money from the tax payers"
France Telecom's capital investments provided by the government and cheap financing rates are forms of subsidy. Further, they get bailed out - last I remember is €9 billion in 2002 [1].
2002 was way after the Minitel and it was after France Telecom financed France to meet the EU conditions to have the Euro. It was for about $7 billions in 1997[1].
And the BBC is biased, really, especially if you look at it from a non Western point of view. The thing is, you (and me) live in the Western capitalistic world, that is, we cannot assess easily the bias, because our references are including it. This is a very interesting topic but far too controversial to be discussed in the comments here.
France Telecom was a company which happens to have the government as shareholder. The company itself was making money by providing telecommunication services. As someone living in France, you did not had to pay France Telecom money if you were not using its services. France Telecom was only funded through invoicing customers.
This is not the same than let say EDF, the French energy monopoly, where all the research to get nuclear energy was funded by the government through the CEA[1]. France Telecom had enough money to fully fund its research centres. They had in fact some of the best research labs.
Talking about France lack of insights toward networking, checkout Louis Pouzin work. His work was among the first using datagrams. Ironically it was pulled down for various reasons in Europe.
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[ 8.3 ms ] story [ 74.3 ms ] threadBut seriously, why some network system layers failed and others thrived? It is not protocol. Gopher was also TCP/IP based, and it has disappeared...
The web had a much, much faster "OODA" loop than competing platforms, and it had a much easier route to being more widely used. Sometimes we fail to see elegance because we see right through it.
As was initial development of the Web - at least indirectly through CERN.
The extent of CERN's sponsorship of the development of the Web was that Tim Berners-Lee obtained permission from his boss to work on it during work hours. His boss's main reason for giving the permission was that he wanted CERN to start evaluating NeXT, Inc, as one of CERN's suppliers, and development of this Web thing seemed just as good a test of NeXT's marketing claims about the excellence of its development environment as anything else.
Probably the biggest way that CERN helped was by providing a good living for a relatively large population of potential early adopters of the Web. (Before the "discovery" of the internet by the mainstream media in 1993, adoption of the internet was almost completely by very-high-IQ folks.)
ADDED. The much more important point, though, is the fact that when Tim BL started developing the Web, the Internet was a very fertile and welcoming environment for experimentation. If you are on Linux or Mac, take a look at /etc/services and realize each of the port numbers you see listed in that file is an experiment. (Note that most of the least successful experiments might not have made it into that file.) I tend to agree with those who say that if Tim BL hadn't invented the Web, it would not have taken long for someone else to invent something similar (something that allows owners of web sites to create experience on graphical UIs that are more compelling that the plain text that was dominant on the Internet till then).
In discussions like this about which individuals and organizations caused an important technological development, it is important to keep in mind one's reasons for wanting to know. My reason for wanting to know how much of the Web and the Internet was caused by government is that it helps me decide how likely government-employed or government-funded individuals are to contribute to future important innovations.
Xavier Niel is the canonical example of that (the guy behind Free mobile/dsl).
> This meant that even the poorest of households contained a set, subsidised by the taxpayer.
It was a freemium model, France Telecom was making a lot of money and was able to fund the Minitel without tax payer money. In fact, France Telecom was a cash cow for the government, not a single time took France Telecom money from the tax payers.
Also, my grand parents were able to use it, basically everybody could use it, the Internet took off extremely well in France across all the generations because it was possible to say: "this is like the Minitel, just type here the address, and there you go".
I did introduction courses to learn how to use Internet in the late 90's and for the 100's of people I helped, the Minitel analogy was perfect and allowed us to move forward extremely fast.
Edit: Thinking about it, this is the same model as the app store. To sell on the app store, you need to ask Apple first. You had to ask France Telecom at that time.
Does Apple allow multiple alternative app stores? If not, then Android should eventually make it obsolete, since you do not have to 'ask Google' to create and market a mobile app there.
Furthermore if the app store barriers filter out poor quality apps and allow in high quality ones, then it actually adds value.
»"not a single time took France Telecom money from the tax payers"
France Telecom's capital investments provided by the government and cheap financing rates are forms of subsidy. Further, they get bailed out - last I remember is €9 billion in 2002 [1].
[1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/2542297.stm
And the BBC is biased, really, especially if you look at it from a non Western point of view. The thing is, you (and me) live in the Western capitalistic world, that is, we cannot assess easily the bias, because our references are including it. This is a very interesting topic but far too controversial to be discussed in the comments here.
[1]http://www.nytimes.com/1996/09/20/news/20iht-euro.t.html
So… it was subsidized by the taxpayer in a way, or am I missing something?
This is not the same than let say EDF, the French energy monopoly, where all the research to get nuclear energy was funded by the government through the CEA[1]. France Telecom had enough money to fully fund its research centres. They had in fact some of the best research labs.
[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commissariat_%C3%A0_l%27%C3%89n...