Why is there a World Wide Web? 

Every so often an invention comes along that ushers the world into a new age, with new ways of communicating, earning money, and organizing our lives. The World Wide Web is one such invention, and it brought huge benefits to mankind. However, as alluded to at the end of the video, we are now dealing with some of the less desirable consequences. Are we now simply data in a machine, vulnerable to exploitation? Children growing up now do not know a world without social media or instant entertainment on demand. What does this mean for their future, and the future of our planet? As always interested to hear your thoughts on these questions in the comments, but please remember to follow our rules of conduct: community.timeghost.tv/t/rules-of-conduct/4518 Cheers, James

In 1999, two years after I was born, my mom was writing her Master's thesis on whether or not the Internet was going to be an effective marketing tool. She argued that it was going to be an effective marketing tool. Over two decades later, I think we can all agree the answer to that question has been a resounding yes.

That moment when I hear people talking about the 90's and 2000's as a part of history, it makes me feel old.

I remember growing up in the 1990s. My elementary school did not have computers until 95 or 96 and it was only twenty or so computers in the library. Even at home, we only rented or leased a computer from Gateway (that was a thing. You leased a computer for a year or so and returned it for a newer model). It wasn't until 1999 we had an actual family computer, using AOL dial-up to access the web, only could be on the web for a short amount of time since there was no landline available for calls while using the internet (cellphones were still not a thing at this point). Boy, how different it was just thirty years ago.

Wars are great but this really hits a point between now and back then. Wonderful (and troubling. ) You rock!

Hi team Awesome content.. Short but sweet.. Please do more like this.. Like a snack it will be to my brain.. Thanks..

you are the BEST narrator of all the videos i've watched! love your history stuff! thank you!!

When I heard Netscape, I think I literally time traveled for a second

TimeGhost and computer history? YES PLEASE!!!

As a computer science student/enthusiast and as a history fan. I truly appreciate this episode coming from you guys, keep it up ;)

Love these shorts, keep em comin!

I've lived exactly half my life without the internet. Having live the past 30 years 'online' I do see the near-limitless impact it has had on civilization-for better or worse. It has completely altered the way we function as a 'civilized' society and has become, for many, the sole source of entertainment, social interaction, world news and general or specific information.

Just commenting to help the algorithm. Great video

I still remember the Commodore 64! That was high tech man! First computer I ever saw was when I was in the USMC, a Tandy TRS 80 IIRC that took up most of an office wall. We got our first PC in '97, a $2800.00 Gateway with Windows 98 which had just been released, so my wife could finish her Masters. We had dial up through the local phone company. I still recall my mother in law emailing us a picture- it only took 1 1/2 HOURS to down load! To us that was incredible. But then, I grew up with 2 1/2 tv channels and one of those was in French! The half channel depended on weather. We thought we were living high on the hog!

Amazing, these videos are amazing!

Bernards-Lee's computer was NOT the first server, by any means, but it was the first server that spoke the HTTP protocol. Servers were invented even before the invention of the TCP/IP protocol.

A cool episode about history of technologies we use everyday would be encryption. As a idea it started in old times, used in WW2 and nowdays asymmetrical encryption is the backbone of securing our WEB and communications. :)

It feels so weird to remember life before the internet

Biggest regret: in early 1990s was working for a (UK) Govt Dept and we needed to store details of labels and approvals for Pesticides. Relational Databases were of no use as at the time they didn't store text, so we used heirarchical databases which was the Betamax of database technology My oddball boss came in one day in 1993 and told me about this hyperlink technology he had heard about at College. We looked at it (only documents and articles, no one had access to any servers). It looked good but the hardware guys weren't keen, we were rolling out email, window 3.1 and a desktop on every desk and everyone was busy. So we let it go. - two years later you could quadruple your salary by simply putting your CV on line as a web page and mention you could programmme html (being able to connect to a database put you into the stratosphere) -- oh well!

Because there's a enormous ravenous spider waiting eagerly to devour us when the time is ripe?

I loved Netscape, Windows 98, and Windows XP. Now they are but fading memories.

The decision by Tim Berners-Lee to forgo patenting the Worldwide Web may rank as one of the most selfless acts in modern history.

But I still miss Gopher, Archie, Jughead, and all those pre-web Internet access tools. (Who are you calling a dinosaur?). ;-)

Funny how "World Wide Web" is shorter than www

To simplify: there's a World Wide Web so people don't have to directly program how to transmit documents to every computer they want to communicate with on the Internet. For full context, without being able to transmit documents, we can't control how to transfer files. For full-context, in order to use something like RU-vid without the World Wide Web and just ARPAnet, you would need at least 100,000,000 IP address-combinations at a time.

Now I know much more about something I used to vaguely hear of, the world wide web, back in the 1990'ies

Well this is neat.

It's important to point out that www, and INTERNET in general have their background in the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) which in 1966 was motivated by guess what... military necessity of a distributed, survivable, communications network. It's interesting that the concept didn't permeate to the wide scientific community for more than 20 years, and then as you correctly explained, it exploded and got to the general public in a matter of a few years. Micorcomputers (from your mobile to your desktop computer) wouldn't have become as important and useful as they are today without the INTERNET .

Excellent short!

I was expecting a history lesson on ARPANET and how the Internet grew from contingency plans in the event of nuclear war.

Fabulous stuff and educational - keep it up TG

Great explanation guys

I always say... I was born before the internet. :) From paper magazines to Web chanels. HI ALL!

I was working at the computer centre of the CERN at that time. That guy did it under my nose... no info ever leaked.

Excellent! Thank you.

Yep, at one point, you could turn off the internet and it was in a black box =D

No mention of America Online or BBS's? I got my first 14.4k baud modem in 1993 and started with those before I even heard of Netscape.

I have written this comment before, and maybe the TimeGhost team has anwsered it, without my knowlegde. If that is the case then consider this comment worthless! When TimeGhost says "FOR BETTER OR FOR WORSE" it should always be " FOR BETTER AND WORSE, i dont understand why this channel reduces history to a if question. PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF ALL HISTORY, dont reduce history to an or and if question. Progress though time is not not a question on wheter it is for better or worse, it is a statement, an honest statement, that technology and changes in religion, politics and morality is always for better and for worse. It is never a question of either or, it always involves both. This channel has my wholehearted support, but i do not understand how you can came up with your catchphrase, I cannot help but see it as an affront to the historical profession. I know this comment might not get many likes, upvotes or so forth, but if possible tell me where i need to go, and what i need to do, in order to get my criticism though. I don't expect to talk to a member of this wonderful team, but i would really like to get my voice heard, because i think your catchphrase does a bit of damage, or at least i have experienced that, in my role as a teacher.

Made web pages for my community college on Netscape

Please make a short about Linux

Okay Indy, how often did you smash that glass of wine with your wild hand gestures, making you start that episode all over again?

Between 2 wars, will there be a cold era, or post cold war era time ghost series in the future? Love these Shorts tho!

FOR BETTER or for worse... iconic words

Im sad these shorts stopped

Drake and Indy Neidell. Never thought I would see that combination

0:20 nuclear resorch?

The Internet is a proper noun. The reason for this is that it is universal in uniting people together

My family had a computer in 1990. I guess that means I'm a computer hipster because I used one before it was cool.

🤔 The person referenced here is Sir Tim Berners - Lee. It is impolite to misspell a person’s name.

The greatest surveillance tool ever created.

Interesting.

I would love to become a completely unpaid internship/researcher for you guys. Please get in touch somehow if at all possible. I humbly ask, as it would be my honour.

Ahh this internet thing is just a fad, it'll never catch on

Plays video and audio you say? Hmm I may have to give this internet thing a look

How many channels do you guys have? It feels like you make a new channel for every subject, which makes it hard to follow everything.

In America we learn that the US military created the internet so bases could still communicate with each other in case one gets destroyed in a nuclear attack. Could someone please explain why this wasn't mentioned? Why r we getting taught something completely different here?

Internet creation = for free Internet usage and surfing = ads, cashgrabs and payment walls

Yes. The World Wide Web and Internet, used so widely everywhere, is also now our global Achilles' heel. Don't forget the old ways. Never forget. (Freely borrowed from you guys. 😊)

What wine are you drinking?

We are spirits in the digital world.

I think you guys are going to get lots of comments on this video since you didn't mention the US military and DAPRPA developing the truly first internet way back in the 60's for US military and and covert uses using it secretly for many decades prior to the release of the WWW.

AL GORE JUST ASK HIM!!!!!

Here I thought Al Gore invented the internet.

Though technically correct, this video is missing nearly 30 years of internet research and the existence of the internet for at least 20 years before these events. The “World Wide Web” (www...) now just known as the web or internet, was originally born in the 1960’s with ARPANet and the development of tcp/ip in the 70’s, and was already in limited use worldwide between, mainly, academic or military organizations. What this video really is about is the creation of the modern web and its release for public consumption, namely the creation of the server and the first web browser to access information on that server.

I'll give you a hint, think pong.

I won't tell you why there's a WWW. But, I can tell you why there's not a WWW.

I think Asimov might have predicted it.

*Are you* *telling us the Internet was **_not_** invented by Bill Gates?!!!1*

Why is Drake on the thumbnail?

Are we human, or are we data?

This is such BS! We all know Al Gore invented the internet! When Sir Tim Berners-Lee was asked during a Reddit AMA if there was anything about the internet he hadn't expected, he answered "kittens." Which is short sighted if you ask me, I mean cats rule our real time, why wouldn't they control our vitual time as well. A lot of technology was being developed during that time frame. Another game changer was Microsoft's plug-n-play. Suddenly you no longer had to fiddle with DIP switches or jumpers/blockers. Just as html made the internet more accessable to computers, Microsoft made computers more accessable to the massess.

... and then microsoft crushed netscape.

Aaaaacutally, the internet is a small black box with a red light on top of it. It doesn't weight anything AND it's wireless and if it's not being presented by the employee of the month it resides in the Big Ben.

The World Wide Web? Never heard of it. 🤣🤣🤣

:)

Al Gore indeed had a lot to do with the modern Internet. Not coding it, but making sure it had funding, and eventually sponsoring the law that turned DARPANet into the Internet available to everybody. Tim Berners-Lee's creation used the general technology of the Internet to create a truly great networked application, on par with other key Internet-based technologies such as email and file transfer.

I love this subject and I love that TGH put some time into covering it However starting it with Tim Berners-Lee I think makes a disfavour to the whole story, as told in Where Wizards Stay Up Late by Katie Hafner, I would love a longer video or series about the beginnings of ARPANet, invention of TCP/IP protocols and characters like Kleinrock and Licklider told by Indy and crew.

Where's Al Gore?

So, Senator Al Gore didn’t invent the internet? 😎 I’m shocked that a pol would take credit for someone else’s work! Shocked I tells ya! 🥸

But ... Al Gore ... but ...

Pre-WWW: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-s4N--lE_YBU.html

Hold up. 2021 - 1990 = 31 I am 18 years old. 100% : 31 * 18 = 58,064516129% I am alive with 58% of the internets history. And I was already on it when I was 7 every now and then. 100% : 31 * 11 = 35,4838709677% This feels wrong. Very wrong.

Why? The internet is for porn (of course)!

Drake? Really? I thought you would've at least put a picture of Al Gore up; I mean he invented the internet, he said so himself.

I'm glad to see somebody else besides me remembers The Globe. It's also a good reminder that so many of those early dot com companies mirrored the most popular American TV comedy of the time...they were all a show about nothing.

Fun fact: The Soviet Union lasted just long enough to get their own top level domain, .su