Richard,
You wrote:
>
> Sure, just think of those grants that Marconi, Bell and others had.
>
Thank you for mentioning Guglielmo Marconi: I could not have thought myself
of a better example to make my point.
The grants Marconi received were given at a point in time when the
feasibility of his invention (wireless transmission) was already proven, and
the extent of the possible exploitation was being evaluated. This happened,
for instance, when he was trying to establish a transatlantic connection
from the UK to his receiving station at Cape Cod, Ma.
OTOH, his early experiments in the previous years were conducted without
private grants. In particular, his first succesful transmission was
performed in Italy, only with help from the (public) academic structure
(namely, the University of Bologna).
If I gave the impression of saying that the private sector is not financing
research, I beg your pardon, I did not make myself clear enough. What I
meant is that the private sector intervenes mostly when the matter under
research is likely to produce commercial results.
Back to the Internet, this was not obvious in the early years, while it is
evident now.
Regards
Roberto
