Coordinating the Internet : Thought styles, technology and coordination

Sammanfattning: The Internet is often mentioned as a driver for digitization or a democratizing tool for societies. However, the Internet is seldom explained, conceptualized or defined. This dissertation elaborates upon and conceptualizes the Internet through three lenses, or thought styles, referred to as the interoperability, the bureaucratic and the market thought styles in an effort to provide an overarching or holistic view of the concept that is the Internet. The Internet, as captured and conceptualized in this dissertation, is separate from services on top, such as the web, by explicit design for an interoperable network which decouples the use of the network from the network itself. A thought style can be considered a set of guiding values or principles of one’s thoughts. This dissertation focuses on different views of technology and coordination depending on thought style, that is conflicts and compatibilities between thought styles rather than conflicts and compatibilities between technology and coordination. This dissertation proposes that the Internet was, and is to a lesser extent, primarily mediated through norms in what I denote the interoperability thought style, which aims and strives for interoperability of both technology and coordination. In modern times the norms of the interoperable Internet, through principles such as separation of concerns, are challenged by market actors striving for profits and bureaucracies wanting to subject the Internet to laws and regulations. As core Internet standards were formulated with explicit intention of open-endedness, the vertical integration native to value capture by market actors and control by bureaucracies provides an arena for conflict and misunderstanding. In a sense, the purpose of the interoperability thought style is to limit path dependency, that is to keep all options open for as long as possible. This is contrary to market logic, where an actor might gain an advantage by shaping and therefore premeditating future market decisions. There are discussions concerning both what the Internet is, and concerning what the Internet should be. This dissertation illustrates these issues through thought styles, even if the thought styles sometimes are so far apart it is impossible to find compatible common ground for agreement or disagreement. Net neutrality is an example of such an issue. Seen from the core values of the interoperability thought style, traffic differentiation based on traffic content is not permitted, since traffic content by design should be separated from the implementation of the network to provide interoperability and separation of concerns. This in practice implies net neutrality, but not through regulation or policy, but instead by technical design to ensure open-endedness and permissionless innovation at the edges of the Internet. In addition, the concept of regulation is in conflict with the interoperability thought style, as regulation aims to control or forbid behavior, whereas the interoperability perspective strives to allow and permit behavior. This is in conflict with the principles of the bureaucratic thought style where regulation is one of the means through which to attain a want. Similarly, core values of the market thought style, such as bundling, market barriers and lock-in effects are in stark conflict with the embedded open-endedness of the Internet and the Internet’s architecture. In particular there are two separate groups of actors with a primary market perspective: the actors selling services on the Internet, and the actors selling Internet-service. Their logics are similar, but their goals different, and regulation and technical standards could provide an advantage to either of the two types of for-profit actors. It is important to note that these thought styles are not tied to education or work title. As an example, an engineer can be bureaucratic by preferring consolidating and integrative design for control. Or a manager might be interoperability minded by avoiding a business decision because it would have led to technical lock-in down the line. This thesis suggests that the Internet today can be conceptualized as an architecture and set of protocols for best-effort digital end-to-end communication effected by its users through adhocratic processes based on ideals of design for interoperability. This conceptualization is primarily grounded in the interoperability perspective; however, notions of the bureaucratic and market perspectives are becoming prevalent, particularly in actual and future coordination of the Internet. The Internet is currently in a slow transformation towards a more vertically integrated network coordinated by value capture and regulation; this is different from a network where all components explicitly are decoupled to as large extent as possible. These perspectives with their compatibilities and conflicts are captured through interviews, discussions, reading of academic literature, bylaws, standards, routing data and exploration of Internet use. This dissertation also intends to be an introduction to the nascent field of Internet coordination and suggests, through examples, relevant approaches to capture multifaceted arenas colored by norms, values, coordination, and technology.