COMMONS ON THE WIRES

The internet is a network of networks. In the main, these networks connect over wires. All of these wires, and the machines linked by them, are controlled by someone. The vast majority are owned by private parties— owned, that is, by individuals and corporations that have chosen to link to the Net. Some are owned by the government.
Yet this vast network of privately owned technology has built one of the most important innovation commons that we have ever known. Built on a platform that is controlled, the protocols of the Internet have erected a free space of innovation. These private networks have created an open resource that any can draw upon and that many have. Understanding how, and in what sense, is the aim of this chapter.
The internet is not the telephone network. It is a network of networks that sometimes run on the telephone lines. These networks and the wires that link them are privately owned, like the wires of the old AT&T. Yet at the core of this network is a different principle from the principle that guided AT&T. Like the principle Baran confronted, this principle affects what is allowed and what is not. And like the principle that Baran confronted, this principle has an effect on innovation.
First described by network architects Jerome Saltzer, David Clark, and David P. Reed in 1981, this principle—called the “end-to-end argument” (e2e)—guides network designers in developing protocols and applications for the network. End-to-end says to keep intelligence in a network at the
ends, or in the applications, leaving the network itself to be relatively simple.
There are many principles in the Internet’s design. This one is key. But it will take some explaining to show why.
Network designers commonly distinguish computers at the “end” or “edge” of a network from computers within that network. The computers at the end of a network are the machines you use to access the network. (The machine you use to dial into the Internet, or your cell phone connecting to a wireless Web, is a computer at the edge of the network.) The computers “within” the network are the machines that establish the links to other computers—and thereby form the network itself. (The machines run by your Internet service provider, for example, could be computers within the network.)
The end-to-end argument says that rather than locating intelligence within the network, intelligence should be placed at the ends: computers within the network should perform only very simple functions that are needed by lots of different applications, while functions that are needed by only some applications should be performed at the edge. Thus, complexity and intelligence in the network are pushed away from the network itself. Simple networks, smart apphicadions.
That was my purpose in Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace. There I argued that it was the architecture of cyberspace that constituted its freedom, and that, as this architecture was changed, that freedom was erased. Code, in other words, is a law of cyberspace and, as the title suggests, in my
view, its most significant law.
But in this book, my focus is different. The question I want to press here is the relationship between architecture and innovation—both commercial innovation and cultural innovation. My claim is that here, too, code matters. That to understand the source of the flourishing of innovation on the. Internet, one must understand something about its original design. And then, even more important, to understand as well that changes to this original architecture are likely to affect the reach of innovation here. which code matters? Which parts of the architecture?
The Internet is not a novel or a symphony. No one authored a beginning, middle, and end. At any particular point in its history, it certainly has a structure, or architecture, that is implemented through a set of protocols and conventions. But this architecture was never fully planned; no one designed it from the bottom up. It is more like the architecture of an old European city, with a central section that is clear and well worn, but with additions that are many and sometimes confused.




This design has important consequences for innovation—indeed, we can count three:
• First, because applications run on computers at the edge of the network, innovators with new applications need only connect their computers to the network to let their applications run. No change to the computers within the network is required. If you are a developer, for example, who wants to use the Internet to make telephone calls, you need only develop that application and get users to adopt it for the Internet to be capable of making “telephone” calls. You can write the application and send it to the person on the other end of the network. Both of you install it and start talking. That’s it.
• Second, because the design is not optimized for any particular existing
application, the network is open to innovation not originally imagined. All the Internet protocol (IP) does is figure a way to package and route data; it doesn’t route or process certain kinds of data better than others. That creates a problem for some applications (as we’ll see below), but it creates an opportunity for a wide range of other applications too. It means that the network is open to adopting applications not originally foreseen by the designers.
• Third, because the design effects a neutral platform—neutral in the
sense that the network owner can’t discriminate against some packets while favoring others—the network can’t discriminate against a new innovator’s design. If a new application threatens a dominant application, there’s nothing the network can do about that. The network will remain neutral regardless of the application.
The significance of each of these consequences to innovation generally will become apparent as we work through the particulars that follow. For now, all that’s important is that you see this design as a choice.
The physical platform on which the Internet took off came prewired. It was the telephone wires that linked homes to homes. But the legal right to use the telephone wires to link to the Internet did not come preordained. That right had to be earned, and it was regulation that earned it. Nothing guaranteed that modems would be permitted on telephone lines. Even today, countries in Asia regulate the use of modems on telephone lines.62 What was needed before the revolution could begin was permission to connect the Net to this net.
For certain applications, “best efforts” is not enough. Internet telephony, for example, doesn’t do well when packets carrying voice get delayed. Any delay greater than 250 milliseconds essentially makes the system unusable.67 And as content on the Net moves to real-time, bandwidth demanding technology, this inability to guarantee quality of service becomes increasingly costly.
Put differently, a pricing system for allocating bandwidth solves certain problems, but if it is implemented contrary to end-to-end, it may well do more harm than good.
That is not to argue that it will do more harm than good. We don’t know enough yet to know that. But it raises a fundamental issue that the scarcity mentality is likely to overlook: The best response to scarcity may not be a system of control. The best response may simply be to remove the scarcity. This is the promise that conservative commentator George Gilder reports. The future, Gilder argues, is a world with “infinite” bandwidth. Our picture of the Net now—of slow connections and fast machines—will soon flip. As copper is replaced with glass (as in fiber optics) and, more important, as electronic switches are replaced by optical switches, the speed of the network will approach the speed of light. The constraints that we know from the wires we now use will end, Gilder argues. And the end of scarcity, he argues, will transform all that we do.
There is skepticism about Gilder’s claims about technology. So, too, about his economics. The economist in all of us can’t quite believe that any resource would fail to be constrained; the realist in all of us refuses to believe in Eden. But I’m willing to believe in the potential of essentially infinite bandwidth. And I am happy to imagine the scarcity-centric economist proven wrong.