How the Internet Became Commercial: Innovation, Privatization, and the Birth of a New Network (The Kauffman Foundation Series on Innovation and Entrepreneurship)

by Shane Greenstein

There was no invisible hand automatically guaranteeing that market events would become either creative or destructive. On the one hand, events were consistent with the classic Schumpeterian framework: entrepreneurial outsiders innovated, and existing firms innovated in response to entrepreneurial innovation from outsiders. Yet that is too simple a characterization. The same events that motivated innovative behavior also motivated defensive resistance and attempts to control competitive events. The process of creative destruction emerged only after the failure of attempts at defensiveness by established firms and failures in the attempts to control competitive processes.