Wrong Question. "They" didn't give us anything; we built it ourselves. "They" built a network for the purpose of letting elite academics communicate and "we" started sending email, using newsgroups, inventing protocols to sit on top of the stack, inventing systems of communications to use those protocols, and private enterprise flourished amidst freedom.
"They" then consolidated power by state-corporate partnerships to gather data and devour or quash competition; so that the monoliths all now act in unison and spaces like this are islands of thought under constant assault.
Wrong Question. "They" didn't give us anything; we built it ourselves. "They" built a network for the purpose of letting elite academics communicate and "we" started sending email, using newsgroups, inventing protocols to sit on top of the stack, inventing systems of communications to use those protocols, and private enterprise flourished amidst freedom.
"They" then consolidated power by state-corporate partnerships to gather data and devour or quash competition; so that the monoliths all now act in unison and spaces like this are islands of thought under constant assault.