CHAPTER
The Internet is a new frontier. In many ways, the experience of the
Internet today echoes the experience of the American Old West. To
understand why the Internet is the way it is today, one must under-
stand how it got its start and how it has changed over time.
In a frontier environment like the early Internet, the only certain thing
is that everything is subject to change. Frontiers often start with rapid ex-
pansion. In American history, expansion started with the early “Wild
West” days, when land was cheap, there was always something new over
the horizon, and settlement moved rapidly westward. There were no es-
tablished interests that had ...