Mastodawn

Robert W. Gehl Oct 27, 2023

Does this book exist?

"How Universities Lost the Internet"

or has someone done research on this topic? That is, the fact that many North American universities have ceded all technical capacity to Microsoft, Google, etc?

It used to be students could get web hosting, email, and even some cool experimental online stuff through their schools. Now every online communication channel is locked down.

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Ricardo Segurado Oct 27, 2023

@rwg

I suspect the tech companies largely poached the expertise out of the universities.

@dwmalone do you have insight into this question?

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jollyrogue Oct 27, 2023

@red_concrete Retaining tech talent is one reason. Most companies, in general, pay better than universities.

@rwg @dwmalone

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David Malone

@jollyrogue @red_concrete @rwg Early on, I think it seemed that folk like Google and MS might be able to run things like mail more cheaply than you could in house. Later, it became harder to run things like mail if you weren't a big provider, and so people were pushed towards using the big providers anyway. There was certainly poaching of expertise too, but I suspect other factors may have been bigger, as there are always folk who don't like the corporate life.