>> SMTP "“didn’t win because it was ‘better,’” he argued, but “just because it was easier to implement." Yes - and this is actually really important! It's true of most of the important early internet technologies. It's the entire reason "internet" standards won over "telco" (in this case ITU) standards - the latter could only be deployed by big coordinated efforts, while internet standards let individual decentralize…
> It's the entire reason "internet" standards won over "telco" (in this case ITU) standards - the latter could only be deployed by big coordinated efforts, Anyone remember the promise of ATM networking in the 90's? It was telecom grade networking which used circuit switched networking that would handle voice, video and data down one pipe. Instead of carelessly flinging packets into the ether like an savage, you had a…
Aren't you confusing LAN and WAN here? ATM didn't lose to thinnet. Nobody (approximately) ran ATM as their LAN.
ATM had its successor in DTM. Yes, long range ethernet won out in the end, but that was much later when it was clear all anyone wanted was IP transport and the cheaper ethernet transcievers got good enough. People ran IP over what they could get: X.25, ATM, anything else vaguely T1/E1-like.