[mfringel]

Let's say that the assertion "An Internet would have existed in 2000 anyway, even if the government did nothing." is true. It's unverifiable, but let's assert it.

Even if it was true, _that's not what happened._ FedGov put money into Arpanet, which led to multiple academic (and a handful of corporate research) institutions putting time, money and organizational effort into creating the current framework. That much is known.

It theoretically could have happened some other way in some alternate timeline, but in this one it happened like that, and pointing out the possibility of an alternate history doesn't change the one we have.