The formative technological innovations of the “open” digital age – electronic computers that exchange data through digital communication networks – did not, by themselves, drive the decentralization of authority in late-twentieth century global society. These technologies, the offspring of the stormy marriage of computing and communications, came into being as components of broader and more fundamental critiques of centralized control. Critiques came first; then came technical development, standardization, and, finally, social consequences.

In the United States and abroad, the computing industry was younger and more volatile than the communications industry. Telephone systems in all industrialized countries operated under the clear jurisdiction of national governments. The American arrangement, which featured the private administration of a national monopoly with the grudging approval of regulators, was abnormal (if not exceptional). American federal regulators in the 1950s, 1960s, and early 1970s used their authority to prevent AT&T from entering the computer business. These restrictions were motivated, in part, by the hope that competition would flourish and bring with it a new era of innovation that would fuel the continuation of American technological leadership.