Consumer History on the Internet

The Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) was founded in the United States in the late 1950's with the primary focus of developing information technologies that could survive a nuclear attack (Networking the Nerds).  In 1967 ARPA representatives from both university and private sector contractors met with the Department of Defense to discuss possible protocols for sharing information via computers.  In 1969 ARPANET, the precursor of the Internet, was born.   This was two years before the calculator was introduced to consumers (History of the Internet and WWW) and the year after National Public Radio was established.  It connected four sites at the University of California at Los Angeles, the University of California at Santa Barbara, Stanford Research Institute, and the University of Utah.  Throughout the 1970's researchers concentrated on developing protocols for controlling networks, moving messages across a system of networks, and allowing for remote access to the networks.  The first email was sent in 1972.  By 1980, 200 host computers were connecting 20,000 people at university, military, and government locations.  Twelve years later the number of hosts had grown to more than a million internationally; and by July of 2004 there were over 285 million host sites (Hobbes' Internet Timeline v8.0).

The 1980's was a time of increased development.  The TCP/IP protocol was introduced in 1983 and the domain name server (DNS) was established in 1984. In 1986, the National Science Foundation developed a system to connect the growing number of hosts.  Regional networks were connected to a backbone network, which became known as the NSFNET.  ARPANET was retired in 1990 as the "Internet" continued to grow and prosper (Hobbes' Internet Timeline v8.0).  HTML protocol was introduced in 1990.  HTML allowed graphics to be sent along with text to create hypertext pages customized to the sender's preference (Networking the Nerds). Everything was now in place for explosive growth.  

"During the late 1980s the first Internet service provider (ISP) companies were formed. Companies like PSINet, UUNET, Netcom, and Portal Software were formed to provide service to the regional research networks and provide alternate network access, UUCP-based email and Usenet News to the public. The first dial-up ISP, world.std.com, opened in 1989.

This caused controversy amongst university users, who were outraged at the idea of noneducational use of their networks. Eventually it was the commercial Internet service providers who brought prices low enough that junior colleges and other schools could afford to participate in the new arenas of education and research."  (Wikipedia: The History of the Internet)

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Commercial Development

Students at MIT developed the first computer game called Space War in 1963.  This game foreshadowed the commercialization of the Internet.  Individuals started selling furniture and cars online in the 1970's and 80's.  Debates raged about whether this was an appropriate use of this new research tool called the Internet.  The debates may continue, but commercialism went into full gear in 1991 when the United States government opened the Internet to private enterprise and formed the Commercial Internet Exchange (CIX) ( PBS Timeline ).

MCI Mail was the first relay between a commercial entity and the Internet in 1989 ( Hobbes' Internet Timeline v8.0 ).  Since that time technologies have emerged that have fueled the growth of private online enterprises.  Email, web research, online banking, and buying and selling are now common consumer activities on the Web.  In 1992 Paul Linder and Mark McCahill at the University of Minnesota released Gopher, a tool that allowed researchers to retrieve specific data from countless locations.  The next year Mosaic, a web browser, was developed at the University of Illinois by Netscape founder Marc Andreesen, the World Wide Web became a public domain, and the Pentium processor was introduced by Intel to help speed up processing (From ARPANET to World Wide Web).  As the technology advanced, the Internet became easier to use and World Wide Web sites became more intricate and inviting.  In 1994 shopping malls arrived on the Net.  You could order pizza online from Pizza Hut or bank at First Virtual Bank, the first cyberbank.  Risk, however, came along with these advancements.  Vladimir Levin of Russia became the first publicly known Internet bank robber when he used the Internet to illegally transfer funds to his account (Hobbes' Internet Timeline v8.0).

Online shopping accounted for over $9 billion in 1997 ( Commerce Department to Measure Online Sales ) and grew to over $87 billion in 2005 (2004 US Commerce Quarterly Retail E-Commerce Sales).  These numbers have been updated since the last version of the White Pages.  Consumer spending via the Internet continues to draw much interest, but business to business activity is also booming. The Commerce Department E-Stats for 2003 indicate that manufacturing business to business sales led all other online industries with $843 billion in sales, while merchant wholesaler accounted for $730 billion in sales (E-Commerce 2003 Highlights).  In the first quarter of 2006, the estimate of U.S. retail e-commerce sales was $25.2 billion which was an increase of 25% from the first quarter of 2005.  If this continues with the current change in sales, it looks like there could be sales over $100 billion dollars.   There has been a change in the amount of e-commerce sales from 0.6% of total sales in 1999 to 2.7% from the first quarter of 2006. (First Quarter 2006  Retail E-Commerce Sales Report)  Research by Forrester, e-commerce sales will reach $229 billion in 2008 and also online retail sales will account for 10% of total U.S. retail sales.  (Selling on the Internet)

Further information on the history of the Internet and an extensive list of links may be found at the Internet Society Web site.

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