Internet commercialization transformed an infrastructure into a space dimension overlaying society

Evidence

If the massive increase in popularity of personal desktops and laptops transformed the consumer market, it was paralleled by the growth of computer-based networking in the business world, an expansion in which the United States played a dominant role. All these developments transformed the internet from a bounded “public infrastructure” to an infinitely extendable space of connection across which global capital could freely range, under the auspices of the libertarian policy agenda sweeping the United States in the 1990s. Move forward another ten years, and, through portable devices with connectivity (smartphones and then tablets), the internet stopped being something statically available from particular points in space and became a dimension that overlays social space continuously. As Rob Kitchin and Martin Dodge put it, “Software … alters the conditions through which society, space and time, and thus spatiality, are produced.” — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 113

Categorization

• XREF: The claim that portable connectivity turned the internet into an overlay dimension of social space parallels the spatial/atmospheric arguments of attention-structure critics. — connects to: Microcelebrity evolved from hobbyism into full-time commercial Influence work across global locales. — Crystal Abidin, Internet Celebrity: Understanding Fame…, 83; Cold War military-industrial investment made the internet’s corporate order possible — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 107; The tech industry reintroduced scarcity into the internet’s supposedly abundant space — W. David Marx, Blank Space: A Cultural History of the…, 723 (+1 more)
• QUESTION: The ‘libertarian policy agenda’ of 1990s America as the enabling condition — worth chasing the policy specifics (e.g., Clinton’s telecom deregulation) as a data point for the extractive-economy framing.

Broader Connections

• The tech industry reintroduced scarcity into the internet’s supposedly abundant space #complicates (0.75) — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 723
• Neoliberal privatization decisions shaped the corporate-controlled internet #expands (0.75) — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn, 288