Back in 1991, when a few of us were tired of working on share transfer system programming on a Unix platform, one of my colleagues and I decided to step out of the office on KG Marg in Delhi for a cup of tea at Barakhamba Road in Connaught Place. It was a chilly winter evening, and the streets were mostly deserted. The winter nights in Delhi often resembled the beginnings of an alien film, with fog and faint lights creating an air of mystery.
As we sipped our masala chai and discussed the new open-source Linux platform rumored to be launched by a company called Red Hat in a couple of years and its potential, my colleague brought up his challenge of reaching people at other terminals connected to our intranet. Although intranet protocols existed at that time, they were expensive for companies that still relied on in-house software development under their data processing centers. Upon returning to the office, I decided to delve into SQL and eventually solved the problem with a six-line SQL script. It allowed for seeking, displaying, broadcasting, and receiving feedback on terminals, with options for exit or loop. In essence, it was a rudimentary form of today's chat platforms like Google, with the only difference being a maximum limit of 256 characters per message. Before we could explore remote terminals further, I left the company, moving on to mini platforms and DOS, while my colleague moved to the United States and eventually developed it into a full-fledged inter and intranet file transfer and communication protocol software, which he patented under Red Hat Linux, the open-source platform. By then, hundreds of similar products were available in the market, and Sabeer Bhatia had launched Hotmail in 1996.
From those early days of automated communication protocols, we now find ourselves in a time, more than two decades later, where communication protocols are no longer a need for us; rather, we have become indispensable to communication protocols. Across the globe, billions of data packets traverse intricate networks of wired and wireless connections every nanosecond, destined for recipients who will process them, turning data into both cost and currency. Perhaps, alongside stock exchanges, gambling, and warfare, internet communication stands as one of capitalism's most lucrative discoveries—something it has monetized to the fullest. It seamlessly fits into its business model, characterized by exclusivity, monopoly, speed, multitasking, and a structure that values productive man-hours.
However, it's essential not to confuse data with the internet communication protocol. This distinction can be likened to the contrast between Microsoft's Windows model and Bell Labs' Unix model. While the former operates as a closed, unilateral system where users can only be operators, the latter fosters a cooperative, federal, and democratic system where users can also become co-creators. This subtle difference underlines the essence of the internet, which empowers users to engage in a liberal, democratic exchange of ideas and information.
The telecommunication network business model, where pricing is uniformly metered, and telephone instruments serve primarily as interfaces for receiving and broadcasting conversations, led Bell Labs to develop a nonlinear, democratically liberal, easily accessible, and modifiable software structure. These communication protocols operate much like individuals within communities under the rule of law in a federal state. Unix functions with small scripts within shells under a broader Unix operating system. These scripts can be independent or interactive shells, or they can form collectives with shared interests or areas of exchange.
It's somewhat ironic that a profit-driven telecommunications company and its capitalistic economy became the architects of an egalitarian socialist system, given their reliance on telecommunication networks. The internet, also dependent on these networks, adopted a liberal socialist architecture rather than an individualistic capitalistic structure.
A closer look at successful internet-based systems reveals that only heavily subsidized or free systems have thrived and endured. Services like Google, email, wikis, social networks, YouTube, maps, and navigation, which operate within an egalitarian system of access, have outlasted their paid, unilateral, capitalistic counterparts that repeatedly attempt to establish a foothold in this socialist network space.
A comparison between Microsoft Windows during the pre-internet era—when chip maker Intel and Microsoft held monopolies and reaped profits through their closed, user-restricted software—and the current era dominated by free Android and Google platforms provides a clear picture of this shift.
The failure of the capitalistic business model worldwide can, to a significant extent, be attributed to the structure of the internet. This structure, founded at Bell Labs and based on a socialist architecture, directly contradicts capitalism. Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, recently advocated for a more socialist approach to computing and business. As long as this network model remains dominant and paves the way for the future, all other systems, including capitalism and its business models, will need to adapt to this non-negotiable reality.
Imagine a world of socialistic capitalism! On the other hand, Facebook and its founder are attempting to monopolize the internet using a capitalistic model of architecture. This dynamic illustrates the ever-changing world and the challenges facing our evolving minds.
