> And just how popular was the internet back then?
Erm ... non sequitur?
> Spending 5 minutes to load up a single web page? No thanks. You also couldn't watch videos (can barely load a gif in a reasonable amount of time) and there wasn't many people. A 5mb MP3? Yep, took a half hour to download. Streaming? Hahaha. Yeah, didn't exist. Except for maybe real player. But only if you were lucky and had a 56k modem, and even then, spotty at best.
And what does that have to do with any of the mentioned companies? None of them are in the telco semiconductor/equipment business, as far as I can see. And all of that is pretty much exclusively about transmission speed.
> I'm sorry, but you have no idea what you're talking about. The internet in the 90s sucked compared to today.
I think I did mention that some things improved, right? What totally did not improve is the openness and privacy, which I both value far higher than transmission speed--and the erosion of both has to do all with the companies you mentioned. Also, I don't see how improving transmission speed would depend on losing openness and privacy.
> Who is going to want to run a search engine for free?
1. Who is running a search engine for free now?
2. Who said it had to be free?
3. Who is "running" streets "for free"?
4. Who was "running" Linux for free before Google came around and built their business on it?
Erm ... non sequitur?
> Spending 5 minutes to load up a single web page? No thanks. You also couldn't watch videos (can barely load a gif in a reasonable amount of time) and there wasn't many people. A 5mb MP3? Yep, took a half hour to download. Streaming? Hahaha. Yeah, didn't exist. Except for maybe real player. But only if you were lucky and had a 56k modem, and even then, spotty at best.
And what does that have to do with any of the mentioned companies? None of them are in the telco semiconductor/equipment business, as far as I can see. And all of that is pretty much exclusively about transmission speed.
> I'm sorry, but you have no idea what you're talking about. The internet in the 90s sucked compared to today.
I think I did mention that some things improved, right? What totally did not improve is the openness and privacy, which I both value far higher than transmission speed--and the erosion of both has to do all with the companies you mentioned. Also, I don't see how improving transmission speed would depend on losing openness and privacy.
> Who is going to want to run a search engine for free?
1. Who is running a search engine for free now?
2. Who said it had to be free?
3. Who is "running" streets "for free"?
4. Who was "running" Linux for free before Google came around and built their business on it?