Tim Worstall

George Osbourne on Teh Internet

I think I’d have a little more respect for young George Osbourne and his views on teh internet if I could see any evidence that he actually knew what he was talking about.

The internet may have been invented by a Briton,

Err, no. The internet was a development of ARPANET, very definitely a US Government (in fact, Department of Defense through DARPA [?? Defense Agency Research something something?], thus the name) programme. There was a UK development of it, JANET, which linked the universities and so on.

The bit invented by a Briton (while working at CERN, an internationally funded physics lab, as we all know) was the World Wide Web. WWW and teh internet are not the same thing, sorry George. Sir Tim Berners-Lee does indeed deserve (and gets) a huge amount of thanks for his invention but he no more invented teh internet than Al Gore did (and to be fair to Al, he never actually claimed that he did, rather that as a Congressman he pushed for its funding and roll out, something which I believe is actually true).

Many of the companies I am visiting, such as Mozilla, have rocketed to success since the crash.

George laddie, have you actually noticed that Mozilla is a not for profit foundation? Not, actually, a company as such?

The rest of it is that we must have more connection between UK academic research and the markets. OK, fine, but not all that impressive when the prescription is built on this sort of lack of knowledge. He also rather misses the point about the creation of value. 97% of the value of innovations goes to the society at large, only 3% remains with the innovators. What is of much greater importance is the application of such innovations within the larger economy, not the nationality or location of those doing the innovating.

A flexible workforce and economy are of vastly greater importance than who owns innovations.

Anyway, given this sterling display of detailed knowledge about the New Economy, aren’t you just on tenterhooks, simply puffed up with excitement, at the possibility of the Boy George becoming Chancellor of the Exchequer?

In

16 responses

  1. 1327 Avatar
    1327

    I believe the theory behind packet switching was invented by a Post Office engineer in the 1960’s but they never took it any further.

    Reply
  2. TheIrie Avatar
    TheIrie

    Nice post, which reminds me of how vibrant and innovative the state sector is – responsible for developing the internet and all. Those who constantly denounce ‘big government’ might like to remember what the state sector, frequently the defence sector, has done for us. Free market idealogues take note! Also, your 97% statistic, where’s that from please?
    Tim adds: From a paper by William Nordhaus. “Schumpeterian profits in the US economy” or some such. There’s a link to it somewhere on the blog, also at TCS Daily (search on “worstall nordhaus” there to find it).

    Reply
  3. AntiCitizenOne Avatar
    AntiCitizenOne

    TheIrie,
    Compare innovation between the extortion funded and free market sectors.
    The free market has enabled the price of a computer to be just one days wages. This means that most people can actually access it.
    The internet to a large extent is run by reciprocation, and has very few state regulations.
    The WWW (HTML/HTTP) was not what CERN was paid to produce. It was the product of one man who was doing his own thing.
    Touting the WWW as an example of the states wise investment of extorted cash just doesn’t wash with me.

    Reply
  4. TheIrie Avatar
    TheIrie

    AntiCitizenOne – it was Tim’s point, not mine! The internet was developed by the state sector, then the private sector came along and took over. I would suggest the same is try of many other innovations. Can you provide some evidence that ‘the free market has enabled the price of a computer to be just one days wages’. You must earn considerably more than most people in this country, let alone on this planet.

    Reply
  5. AntiCitizenOne Avatar
    AntiCitizenOne

    I think you’ll be suprised how well the free market has increased affordability.
    http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?Quicklinx=4155

    Reply
  6. Doc Bud Avatar
    Doc Bud

    I thought Al Gore invented the lot.
    Thelrie: If you can’t buy at least one computer for a day’s wages you are obviously a bone idle ne’re-do-well

    Reply
  7. Jon Avatar
    Jon

    “Err, no. The internet was a development of ARPANET, very definitely a US Government (in fact, Department of Defense through DARPA [?? Defense Agency Research something something?], thus the name) programme.”
    Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, though I believe the agency was known as ARPA at the time you are referring to (the ‘D’ came later).
    “Nice post, which reminds me of how vibrant and innovative the state sector is – responsible for developing the internet and all. Those who constantly denounce ‘big government’ might like to remember what the state sector, frequently the defence sector, has done for us. Free market idealogues take note!”
    It’s hardly surprising that the combination of billions of dollars of loot and some very bright boffins has resulted in some significant breakthroughs. But for every one of the DoD’s technological achievements, there is a costly fiasco such as Star Wars or Son of Star Wars. “Free market ideologues” think that the private sector could improve the hit rate – I’m inclined to agree.

    Reply
  8. P. Froward Avatar
    P. Froward

    To succeed, government projects have to be small enough to escape notice until it’s too late for success to be averted. That’s exactly how ARPANET happened. I’ve heard that the JDAM was developed very much the same way.
    There’s no absolute principle that government does everything wrong, just that they have a much worse record in most areas than the private sector does.
    It is actually arguable that a purely private project wouldn’t have done anything as architecturally open and decentralized as the internet (e.g. AOL, Prodigy, etc.) (The openness is 99% its value, if that ain’t obvious.) I mean there’s a nonridiculous analogy with the interstate highway system. On the other hand, there are a lot of formal industry standards out there, most developed by consortiums (“consortia”?) of private companies who recognize that interoperability can make money for everybody.
    The government funds research where there’s no sane prospect of turning a profit in the forseeable future, and that’s worthwhile. But how many defense spin-offs have been of use to anybody outside the military, without private companies first turning them into useful products? Roughly zero. Have you seen a Soviet video game?
    Tim adds: “Soviet video game”. Yes actually. Exactly what led me to go to Russia in the first place, to hire the guys that had written it 🙂

    Reply
  9. TheIrie Avatar
    TheIrie

    AntiCitizenOne – 104 pounds a day is equivalent to a salary of about 37,000. I reckon about 9% of the UK population earn this. So Doc Bud, its got nothing to do with what I earn, I’m interested in the general population. If you are arguing that free market ideology benefits the top 9% of the population, and to hell with the rest, fine. Why didn’t you just say so. Jon – you may be inclined to agree, but I am yet to be convinced, and your assertions do not help me.

    Reply
  10. TheIrie Avatar
    TheIrie

    P. Froward – “How many defense spin-offs have been of use to anybody outside the military, without private companies first turning them into useful products?”
    The point is the development was carried out with public money and public risk. The successful projects are picked up by private enterprises, at practically no cost and risk, and exploited for private profit. i.e. socialised costs and risked, privatised profits. Quite clever really.

    Reply
  11. Jon Avatar
    Jon

    TheIrie – you’re taking aim at a straw man. No-one believes that the state is incapable of occasionally funding a successful project. (Though there are plenty of us who think that the ends do not justify the means).

    Reply
  12. AntiCitizenOne Avatar
    AntiCitizenOne

    It’s actually about 13 quid an hour. So not a great deal and is actually roughly the average UK wage (25K).
    But then you are, of course, quoting the amount left AFTER government extortion. Personally I would add 12% on to peoples daily wages, as the state extorts that amount (NI) off the employer side of the contract.

    Reply
  13. HJHJ Avatar
    HJHJ

    It is very worrying that George Osborne can write such a woefully misinformed piece based a on a quick visit to silicon valley. In fact, had he bothered to ask, anyone in California could have told him the origin of the Internet.
    I had a similar feeling about the article that David Cameron wrote after visiting China.
    The fact is that you can’t get a decent insight ino these things from a quick visit.

    Reply
  14. Tim Almond Avatar
    Tim Almond

    The thing is that whilst the government did, in a way, invent the internet, it was purely by accident.
    If government had intended it to be done as a political priority instead of a military project built around redundancy, it would have been a disaster.
    I have little doubt that government would have designed a top-down centralised network that would have had none of the grace of the internet.
    As for its creation, without government, business would have created it. Companies have, at least since 1989 (my first experience coding such a system) been exchanging data. Admitedly it was on magnetic tapes, but even as long ago as 1993, I was working on data exchange via secure non-internet EDI networks, and I was late into the game.
    It may have looked different, true. It may have been a more closed system than the internet.

    Reply
  15. P. Froward Avatar
    P. Froward

    Tim, really? Cool. I saw a thing about a Soviet video game on Slashdot years ago and it was pretty dismal. But if the hardware was bad enough, it would have taken somebody pretty sharp to get anywhere at all. On the other hand, my own experience with ex-Soviet contract programmers was… harrowing.
    Therie, you’re pulling our legs, right? Are you suggesting that we all got somehow ripped off by the internet being turned into a useful product? Or rather into thousands of useful products. “Private profit”? Yeah, yours.
    Tim adds: Don’t forget, Tetris was orginally done in Moscow. “Frogger” was one I was more involved with. Early days stuff though, 90/91

    Reply
  16. ajay Avatar
    ajay

    Irony: a man rifting another for confusing the Internet and the Web, who, midway through the nitpicking, reveals that he does not know what ARPA stands for and can’t be bothered to look it up.

    Reply

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