[mcguire]

Let's see: 1975 (IIRC, TCP was somewhat later, but I'll be generous) plus 30 years would be 2005.

The Boucher Bill was 1992, prior to that commercial traffic was not allowed on the ARPA/NSFNET. Now, I wasn't around for the early Internet, since it wasn't particularly common until the mid '80's, but "languish" is not how I would describe what I saw. At that time, it connected every research and most educational organizations and did almost everything it does now except carry specifically commercial traffic. HTTP was not developed until the early '90's, and there was essentially no private interest in the Internet until HTTP had become prevalent, except for what it was already doing: email, news, and file transfer. And between the introduction of commercial traffic and infrastructural improvements which were part of the dot-com boom, the Internet did those three things significantly less well than it had previously.

So, yes it wouldn't be where it is today without private sector investing (particularly the massive infrastructure build-out in the late '90's). But "languish" for "30 years"? "Private concerns" created "technological revolutions"?